WPI Student Team is Among the Winners at Dept. of Energy JUMP into STEM Competition

A team of WPI students was recently one of four winning teams of the annual JUMP into STEM competition. On January 25th and 26th, the US Department of Energy held the JUMP into STEM final competition at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. A concept for a Thermal Energy Storage (TES) system was presented for the topic “Keepin’ it Cool (or Hot)”.  The system was presented against eight other teams in total with a variety of projects across three different project topics.

The project was originally developed by a team of four students for a Heat Transfer class taught by Professor Mehdi Mortazavi. The team consisted of Rebekah Shields ‘25, Matthew Lydon ‘25, Timothy Rinaldi ‘24, and Phillip Cass ‘24. Throughout the course of A-term 2023 the team came up with and developed the idea for their TES system. Originally created as a class project centered around the JUMP into STEM topics, their TES was developed using important concepts that were learned throughout the term.

After the term ended, the team was encouraged to continue working on the project and submit it to the JUMP into STEM competition. Rebekah and Matthew continued working on the project after A-term ended to further develop the project. Once they finished working on the project, they submitted it to the competition and a few months later got notified that it was selected to be presented at the final competition. The two then continued modifying the project up until the competition where Rebekah was able to present it to a panel of judges from various backgrounds as well as multiple ORNL scientists. 

At the competition, the TES system caught the interest of all of the judges, who urged the team to continue working on the project because of the potential that the idea has. With Professor Mortazavi as a project advisor, Rebekah and Matthew are now furthering the project as their MQP project in the 2024-2025 academic year, hoping to progress the idea to the best it can be.