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Adapting Capstone Design for the Solar District Cup Competition

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Conference

2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Location

Baltimore , Maryland

Publication Date

June 25, 2023

Start Date

June 25, 2023

End Date

June 28, 2023

Conference Session

Energy Conversion, Conservation and Nuclear Engineering Division (ECCNE) Technical Session 1

Tagged Divisions

Energy Conversion and Conservation and Nuclear Engineering Division (ECCNE)

Page Count

8

DOI

10.18260/1-2--42568

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/42568

Download Count

238

Paper Authors

biography

Joseph Ranalli Pennsylvania State University Hazleton Orcid 16x16 orcid.org/0000-0002-8184-9895

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Dr. Joseph Ranalli is an Associate Professor at Penn State Hazleton, teaching in the Alternative Energy and Power Generation Engineering program. He previously earned a BS from Penn State and a PhD from Virginia Tech, both in Mechanical Engineering. His research interests include solar energy and enhancing the use of technology resources in engineering education.

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Abstract

The US Department of Energy Solar District Cup is a nationwide solar design competition for engineering students. This article describes one faculty member’s experience integrating the competition into a capstone design course for the first time. Some key challenges were adapting the course assignment structure to match the overall proposal report requirements and taking advantage of the competition timeline regarding how to best structure the course instructional time. Besides developing students’ experience with solar design, some advantages of the competition were the availability of access to professional design tools, support from the competition in the form of training materials and office hours with professionals, and the overall breadth of design aspects that students were expected to consider. In addition, the inclusion of distributional energy equity as a component of the proposal presents a strong opportunity for instruction and assessment related to ABET Student Outcomes. The Solar District Cup was a positive design experience for students and the lessons learned as described in this paper may help aid others integrate it into capstone design courses.

Ranalli, J. (2023, June), Adapting Capstone Design for the Solar District Cup Competition Paper presented at 2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Baltimore , Maryland. 10.18260/1-2--42568

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