techpoint s.o.s. challenge
During the summer of 2021, I joined the S.O.S. program through the TechPoint organization. S.O.S. stands for “Summer Opportunities for Skills” and is an alternative to a traditional internship. This program allows you to work with a group of students with varying skillsets to create a project over 6 weeks. The program coordinators assign each student to a group and assign each group a challenge topic.
After being assigned a group and topic, we met up and had to decide for ourselves when to meet, how often to meet, and who would be taking on what roles in the group. Each group had two teams, the GO squad and the PRO squad. The GO squad would be the members with the business-oriented roles, and the PRO squad would have the more technical roles. We were also assigned a mentor who would assist us as someone with real experience in the field. This program left a lot of the responsibility up to us and we were accountable for actually completing the project effectively.
With that general overview out of the way, let’s get into the specifics of what my group accomplished! We chose to do a project in the sustainable energy category. I was on the PRO squad and my role in the group was the web designer. I would also help out with the research and coding aspects when available. Each group was also required to select a project manager, and I volunteered myself for the role and my group chose me!
As project manager, my responsibilities included:
organizing meetings for my group
being the contact person for my group’s mentor
filling out forms sent by the coordinators to update them on our progress
contacting the appropriate people if our group had questions
assigning tasks to my group members and ensuring we stayed on top of our work to finish by the deadline
being available to help other group members when needed
and more!
flip & the atlas case
Since my group chose the sustainable energy topic, we were tasked to come up with something that could help to better store and transport EV batteries. Our group decided to work on developing a physical product and we were the only ones to do so. The plan we came up with was to take the used EV batteries from car dealerships and mechanics. From there, we would transport them to somewhere that could recycle them into power sources for tiny homes or use them as storage for renewable energy. We called our company “FLIP” since we would be “flipping” the energy and using it for something else.
Eventually, we developed the digital prototype for what we called the Atlas Case. This was a specialized container meant to hold the batteries since transporting them can be dangerous and they need certain temperature conditions to remain safe. This case was specially designed to account for and prevent hazards that raise concerns when it comes to transporting EV batteries. We developed some code for the case as well and put a lot of work into planning what would happen if the case was able to leave the prototype stage. It was a really unique project to work on and I had a great team to work with! Also, getting to be the project manager was a great experience for me and I’m grateful my team trusted me with the responsibilities of it!
