By Andrew Lambrecht
As the golden flowers bloomed in upstate South Carolina’s rolling hills, the Clemson University & Greenville Technical College Battery Workforce Challenge team packed their bags to attend the BattChallenge’s Winter Workshop In the Detroit metro area.
The two schools left sunny conditions for cold and wintry weather. Despite the chilly conditions, the institutions received exposure to leaders in the electrification section, knowledge of the EV powertrain research and a look at avant-garde automotive research facilities.
On the first leg of the experience, the teams toured the Chrysler World Headquarters and Technology Center, or CTC. The facility is home to Stellantis’ latest automotive research and testing. Here participants got exclusive access to weather chambers, dyno research, radio wave testing units and more.
”(This was) a great event providing us valuable opportunities to learn battery pack design techniques and engage with the Department of Energy, other universities, Stellantis and industry sponsors,” said Jeff Zhang, lead faculty advisor for the Clemson University & Greenville Technical College BattChallenge team and an associate professor of Clemson University’s Department of Automotive Research.
At the event itself, team members, such as Steven Johnson and Nick Mineri were particularly fond of the in-person networking. The two talked extensively with Ajay Gnanasekaran, Argonne National Laboratory’s senior director of the Battery Workforce Challenge, about fostering a career in the sustainable energy industry. Gnanasekaran spoke of his experience at Tesla and Panasonic’s Gigafactory in Sparks, Nev. and working at various automotive firms.
“The BWC is a great experience to be mentored by engineers in the field,” said Johnson, battery pack hardware lead for Clemson University & Greenville Technical College’s BattChallenge team and an electrical engineering student at Clemson University.
Beyond the networking and tours, the team members saw how their work and research would translate into the real world.
“The winter workshop was very inspiring as we got to see real working engineering putting our theoretical knowledge into real-world applications,” said Minieri, an electrical engineering student at Clemson University.
As the portrayal of American theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer said in the 2023 film Oppenheimer, “theory can only take you so far.” For engineering students aspiring to work in the sustainable energy industry, this was the transition from theory to practice.
