Central students make waves at National Electric Propulsion Competition

Four Central students earned a sixth-place finish in the Planing Division at a national electric boat racing competition from April 14 to 16 after designing and building a 14-foot electric-powered vessel from scratch over six months.

Manufacturing Engineering Technology majors Skyler Hine, Dephtany Ayala, and Dinh Doan, and Max Prunier, a Technology and Engineering Education major, represented Central at the 6th annual Promoting Electric Propulsion (PEP) collegiate competition hosted by the American Society of Naval Engineers. The event drew 48 universities and challenged teams to design, construct, and race electric boats under strict efficiency, safety, and voltage constraints.

Working under the guidance of Dr. David Sianez of Central’s Technology and Engineering Education program, the team engineered the vessel entirely from the ground up—handling fabrication, electrical integration, and system testing as a unified build effort.

Sianez noted, “Central students learned new hands-on composite boat-building skills as they constructed our PEP competition vessel and electric propulsion system from scratch over six months of challenging work. Their knowledge and confidence continued to show while their ideas began to materialize right in front of them and carried on into weeks of testing and ultimately the National competition.”

At the heart of the boat is a short-tail mud motor propulsion system powered by a high-performance, direct-current electric motor and a 48V lithium iron phosphate battery system. Chosen for its safety, stability, and efficiency, the system was configured to remain within the competition’s 55-volt limit while delivering high-performance thrust through an electric drivetrain. 

Read the team’s white paper online to learn more about the vessel’s construction and testing.
After months of bench testing, electrical verification, and water trials, the vessel advanced to competition, where teams raced over a five-mile course under tight efficiency constraints.

Watch the team’s vessel in action!