Mississippi State engineering students are preparing to compete in a green energy-themed competition in Charlotte, N.C., on March 18.
Senior computer engineering major Ryan Wood said the yearly competition is organized by the Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers.
There are different sections of the competition which students can choose to compete in. The MSU group is participating in the hardware section. Students must be members of the IEEE and an undergrad to participate. Each year there are approximately 35 to 40 contenders.
“The competition requires that you construct a vehicle that only runs on solar power basically,” Wood said. “It can’t run off batteries or any type of stored energy.”
Senior computer engineering major Austin Lee explained the solar-powered vehicle must complete an obstacle course in order to gain points. The object is to get as many points as possible in a three minute period.
“There are three main obstacles and we have to go counter-clockwise around the course,” Lee said. “There is a height obstacle that restricts us to 8 inches tall, a width obstacle restricts us to 8 inches high and there is a ramp.”
Wood said instead of choosing a typical senior design project, the group decided to do the competition instead.
“Senior design for our majors usually involves picking a project and building something,” he said. “Or you can choose to do this competition.”
Wood said senior design projects take two semesters and during the first semester, the group puts everything together on a very basic prototyping phase, so they could change components really easily.
“We have been brainstorming our minds out,” he said. “We have come up with so many different ideas.”
Senior electrical engineering major Jacob Morgan explained that the first step in preparing for the competition was to get ideas from everyone about how to approach the problem and then the group had to vote to pick the best solution.
“Then we had to get different parts in, get a system going and then adjust it from there,” Morgan said.
Morgan said one of the challenges their team faces is they do not have a mechanical engineer like many other groups may have. This team is composed completely of electrical and computer engineering majors.
“As far as our challenge goes, compared to past projects, this one has been so oriented on power, having to use your power the best way possible and find out which components use the least amount of power,” Morgan said. “In December, we could only go half a lap, but a couple of weeks ago after some weight shedding, we were able to double our performance, so it did feel good to know that we can actually make a lap and a half.”
Wood said the team has been making a lot of improvements this semester.
Lee said the cost has been much higher than the group originally anticipated as well.
“Solar panels are not cheap,” Lee said. “We had to pay for solar panels, motors and the entire [obstacle] course.”
The competition is meant to be a learning experience for those involved, and Wood said the group has learned a lot about team work throughout the work they have done during this project.
“I have learned more in this group than any other type of group or any class I have taken here,” Wood said. “I learned major team skills, like how to communicate on a team and how to stay organized.”
Morgan said the group sets different tasks for one other and certain people will jump onto a specific part of the project that interests them.
“Whichever area you decide to do, you get into that pretty deep and you learn a lot about it,” Morgan said.
He said the winning group will receive a trophy at the end of the competition.
“Winning looks really good for the university and the department,” Morgan said.
Wood said if the group wins, they look forward to the bragging rights.
“MSU is known for winning these things very often,” Woods said “We are competing with major schools like Georgia Tech, Virginia Tech, Auburn; pretty big name schools in the Southeast, and we want to take the gold.”