May 21, 2024

The Project 

Blake Bohnert, Cain Bridges, Tyler Wuestling and Jack Chubb set out to solve the overuse of power during peak consumption hours for their capstone project.  

“Solar energy generates power during the day, lessening the demand for fossil fuel generation,” Bridges said. “At night, solar energy cannot produce enough energy, making the demand for fossil fuel generation higher. Our project buys power during the day to use later, during peak hours, to solve this problem.” 

The Process 

The scope of this project meant that the group had to draw on their classwork on circuits to create one that could buy up and hold power from the electrical grid. 

“Some of the engineering techniques we used for this project included circuit analysis, simulating the circuit, building a circuit and using the test equipment in the lab to make sure that the circuit is working properly,” Chubb said.  

The team also used LabVIEW software to manipulate the test equipment and connect to the circuit after their analysis.  

The Outcome  

The team completed their capstone by developing a prototype of their project’s design system. 

“The prototype shows the process that goes on in our actual designed system,” Bohnert said. “It charges and discharges a battery just like our proof of concept.” 

For Wuestling, the project is directly applicable to the work he’ll be doing after graduating. 

“Working with a battery energy storage system to make the system more efficient was great,” he said. “I was able to practice my drawing capabilities with creating a system, doing a side layout, a below grade and a cable schedule, as well as a cost analysis. All these things are very relevant to what I’ll be doing in my career.” 

Learn more about electrical and computer engineering at Mizzou! 

Read about other capstone projects here.