By Em Jankauski
The Battery Workforce Challenge collegiate competition is set to hold its Year Two Winter Workshop at the Hilton Greenville and Greenville Technical College’s Center for Manufacturing Innovation in Greenville, S.C. from Feb. 27 through March 1. This workshop is truly packed with endless opportunities.
“We’re ready to hit the ground running,” said Ajay Gnanasekaran, BattChallenge director. “These workshops are truly such a unique opportunity for our BattChallengers. Time and time again, they give students unique access to industry leaders, allowing them to seek advice on their designs, ask technical questions or seek career advice. And in return for those industry leads, our sponsors, it’s the perfect opportunity to ready the future battery workforce.”
Here’s a little preview of what’s to come.
Day one: Networking and learning
Day one of the three-day workshop starts off at the Hilton Greenville, where students will hear from plenary speakers Ajay Gnanasekaran, the BattChallenge director; Micky Bly, Stellantis’ senior vice president and head of global propulsion systems; and Alycia Gilde, U.S. Department of Energy’s senior advisor for transportation and partnerships. Kristen Wahl, Argonne National Laboratory’s Sustainable Transportation Education and Partnerships director, will also join the speakers to reveal the location for the upcoming year-end competition.
Later, students will get the chance to network one-on-one with competition sponsors during the Sponsor Social and Networking Event. Organizers have put a little spin on this workshop’s event, holding a couple of friendly competitions between the teams and individual BattChallengers.
Teams will be challenged to put their teams on the map, meeting with five out of the eight attending sponsors by asking each of them at least one engaging question. Once the team meets with at least five sponsors, a team member will tack the team’s logos to the foam board map at the entrance of the event to be entered into a raffle to win an hour-long call with two Eaton leaders.
The first Eaton representative would be a technical expert to discuss the company’s role in advancing electrification and power management as well as career opportunities in engineering and e-mobility. The second would be an HR leader, who will share guidance on career development, the hiring process and key skills needed for success in the EV and battery industry.
BattChallengers are also encouraged to compete individually to visit with at least five of the eight attending sponsors to ask them each an engaging question. Once complete, BattChallengers can enter their contact information on a slip of paper at the front of the event to be entered into a drawing to win an hour-long chat with a Stellantis executive.
Sponsors attending the day’s Sponsor Social and Networking Event include:
Students will receive several training sessions provided by competition organizers and sponsors on the following topics:
- Battery vibration simulation and testing
- Agile software development processes
- Battery thermal runaway simulation
- Model componentization
- Utilizing high fidelity multiphysics systems simulations
- Integrating predictive models into controller development
- Battery Management Systems evaluation boards
- Project management playbook: Mastering the rules and roster
- Project Management Assessment Center briefing and review
- Introduction to Obeya
- Looking at social media through a 2025 lens
Day two: Industry-level feedback
Days two and three will take place at Greenville Technical College’s Center for Manufacturing Innovation. Day two kicks off with a battery panel discussion, titled Watt’s Next? Energizing the Battery Workforce. Featured panelists include Bly, Mark Champine, Stellantis’ senior vice president and head of North America engineering technical centers; Gilde; Ryan Melsert, American Battery Technology Company’s CEO; and Wahl.
A van delivery media event will be held immediately following the panel. Stellantis’ Bly and Champine will deliver the Clemson University & Greenville Technical College team’s RAM ProMaster EV. Gnanasekaran; Jiangfeng (Jeff) Zhang, the team’s lead faculty; Maurice Grady, vocational faculty lead; and two student representatives will chat with attending media.
From here each team will conduct its thermal, software and module design reviews, providing each crew with industry-level feedback on its designs from the competition’s attending sponsors.
Project managers and vocational deputies from each of the 12 teams will also participate in the Project Management Assessment Center. On day two, they’ll complete a statement of work for their welding strategy and present it to a panel of judges from Analog Devices, Argonne National Laboratory, Eaton and Stellantis.
Later that evening, teams will be treated with dinner and an appreciation night, where local improve group Alchemy Improv, will perform a private show for the BattChallengers.
Day three: Taking initiative
On the last day of the workshop, BattChallenge teams will continue their thermal, software and module design reviews as well as participate in the Project Management Assessment Center. This time, project managers and vocational deputies will be given a case study to review for 30 minutes independently, and then as a group, they must work collaborative to formulate a project initiative and present their efforts to the panel of judges from Analog Devices, Argonne National Laboratory, Eaton and Stellantis.
An additional workshop festivity includes the BattChallengers highlighting their teams’ experience in real-time on social media. Each day, the organizers will give them a prompt to share about on their respective team LinkedIn pages. Teams who post each prompt can then submit their engagement rate post-workshop. The team with the highest engagement rate will win an extra seat for the Year Two Competition.
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That concludes the Battery Workforce Challenge’s Year Two Winter Workshop’s activities. Follow us on LinkedIn to see all the action from this week’s workshop. Stay tuned for the announcement of the year-end competition location and dates.
