By Peter Goshomi, Jackson State University
Year two for the Jackson State University & Hinds Community College BattChallenge team has been both exciting and challenging. But one thing is for sure, it has brought unforeseen, tremendous growth for the team both in size and understanding of the project.
Michael Brooks, Battery Pack Hardware Team lead
Meet Michael Brooks, he is a JSU computer engineering senior, who has been one of the MVPs of the team. His work ethics and commitment to excellence allowed him to rise through the ranks and become the engineering manager of the team.
With less than 12 weeks in office, he’s managed to accelerate the work throughput by more than 50 percent. Our Battery Disconnect Unit module designs went from a procrastinated state to 80 percent deployment ready under his leadership.
Da’jnea Antoine, vocational deputy and communications lead
From the team’s vocational side, Da’jnea Antoine has been one of our MVPs this year. Da’jnea is a Hinds Community College second-year student studying radio and TV. She has a knack for bringing life to our in-person team meetings. She holds the fort down on all fronts with regards to non-technical deliverables.
She serves the team as the vocational deputy and has expressed thoughts of personal growth after participating and spectating in the winter workshop PMAC activities. In her own words, year two has been “an amazing experience!”
Peter Goshomi, Battery Pack Software team lead
And from the author of this post, Peter Goshomi, we have had the honor of watching our team take shape and grow holistically to become competitive in this competition. I also am a relatively new project manager in the competition closing on 14 weeks of experience.
One of the biggest wins for the new project manager has been doubling up the deliverable submission rate from a mere 40 to close to 100 percent submission rate, including the backlog of all PM-related deliverables.
For the team, we have garnered support and formed strategic partnerships with neighboring schools that have experience around electric vehicles through programs like EcoCar and the most helpful partner by far has been Mississippi State University which is in its third year of the competition. Working with the dead cells that were shipped to the team has instilled a sense of confidence and excitement to finally see the team designs and ideas for the module crystallize.
Another force to be reckoned with are our assigned mentors, working with the mentors has made several of our team members reconsider switching their career plans to becoming high voltage battery engineers of all sorts.
The mentors brought in with them a new sense of direction and focus. They have helped to deepen the knowledge base and comprehension of certain topics on batteries, all the while demystifying the ingenious engineering that goes into battery pack designs.
