U.S. Department of Energy Marine Energy Collegiate Competition (MECC)
Team Name: Water Bears
University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, California
Team deliverables
- Poster: MAPS (Mobile AUV Power Station)
- Report: Mobile AUV Power Station
- Presentation: Mobile AUV Power Station
- Recording of virtual team presentation
Why this competition?
Participation in the U.S. Department of Energy Marine Energy Collegiate Competition (MECC) provides the Water Bears team an opportunity to advance their knowledge and understanding of ocean renewable energy. Team members are eager to learn more about industry sustainability while increasing their technical and business skills.
Project description
The Water Bears team will develop an underwater docking station that can store energy generated by currents, tides, and waves to recharge underwater unmanned vehicles (UUVs), automated underwater vehicles (AUVs), and even manned underwater vehicles. The docking station could also serve as an intermediate data repository so that underwater vehicles can spend longer time underwater, thus reducing costs.
The team will also propose business models to demonstrate the value of underwater docking stations.
Game plan
The Water Bears’ design process will comprise the following phases:
- Customer discovery/research
- Project/product definition
- Concept generation
- Concept evaluation
- Product generation
- Product evaluation.
The team will begin by examining how UUVs and AUVs perform in different regions based on various renewable resources and working with clients to design solutions and prototypes.
Using technical design work from researchers at Oregon State University, the Water Bears team will create SWOT analysis, function decomposition, quality function deployment, and set-based designs. The team will learn design analysis methods and software programs by attending MECC webinars and meetings with UC Berkeley graduate students and CalWave Power Technologies engineers.
To develop a business plan, the team plans to work with Neha Consultancy, Berkeley Energy and Resources Collaboration (BERC), and CalWave. Through work with the Energy Institute at Haas School of Business, the team will build brand awareness and develop a sustainability-oriented client pitch.
The team also plans to develop an outreach program, which will include the Bay Area community and local schools. Through Students for Environmental Energy Development, an outreach program led by UC Berkeley graduate students, the team will educate local elementary school students about the science of energy use. Media outreach will include publishing an article in Berkeley Science Review, a student-run campus science magazine.
Team strengths
The team’s multidisciplinary makeup—with students majoring in mechanical, electrical, and industrial engineering; computer science; and business—along with student experience in programming, fabrication, manufacturing, finance, and other areas make the Water Bears well situated to tackle competition challenges.
Team hurdles
The team has little experience pitching business plans or creating business models. In addition, time constraints will make coming to agreements and finalizing decisions challenging.
Competition objectives
By participating in MECC, the Water Bears team will advance their knowledge of ocean engineering, receive hands-on experience, protect global water systems, explore cost-effective methods for providing power to underwater vehicles, and contribute innovative research to the marine energy industry.
Social media accounts
This portal is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Water Power Technologies Office (WPTO) under Contract Number DE- AC36-08GO28308 with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Contract Number DE-AC05-76RL01830 with the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, and Contract Number DE-NA0003525 with Sandia National Laboratories, as part of the MHK Data Communities project. The United States Government retains, and the publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the United States Government retains a non-exclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, world-wide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this manuscript, or allow others to do so, for United States Government purposes.