The Curiosity Engineering Club is constructing a boat to compete in Sacramento Municipal Utility District’s California Solar Regatta competition during their first semester on campus as an officially chartered club.
The Solar Regatta competition is hosted annually at SMUD’s Rancho Seco Recreational Area, where students design and build solar-powered boats that are up to 20 feet long, bow to stern, and at least big enough for an individual to sit in. The boats are judged based on their maneuverability, distance and speed, according to SMUD’s website.
Club president Jasmeet Singh, a 21-year-old mechanical engineering major, said his goal is to bring home a trophy from the Solar Regatta competition.
“There are going to be a lot of four-year universities coming in to compete in the competition from across California to race their solar boats,” Singh said.
The Curiosity Engineering Club previously collaborated on the Solar Regatta project with the Mathematics, Engineering and Computer Science Club and the construction department, Singh said.
“This year I reached out to the construction department and they wanted to form their own team,” Singh said. “Which is great, we get to see skills of the construction department in terms of engineering as well because they work with solar panels.”
The Makerspace in T-177 offers a milling machine, textile room, 3D printers, laser printing, water jet and other equipment to students working on projects.
The Curiosity Engineering club will be engineering their boat from scratch in the Makerspace, said Singh.
“I’m personally very excited to use the 3D printers and I’m going to find a way to utilize the water jet.”
Singh said the design, electrical and programming assembly and fundraising team collaborate together on the Solar Regatta project.
Nathan Ward, a 19-year-old civil engineering major, leads the programming and electrical team.
“Right now we’re working on actually building the boat and trying to find the best body shape to reduce the amount of drag and get the fastest boat, but also be able to maneuver it well,” Ward said.
Ward said he learned to develop his own ideas while listening to club members through creating an optimal boat.
Club meetings often take place on Discord, a digital communication platform that has texting, streaming, video calls and voice calls.
“Everyone joins a voice chat and we talk for a couple hours about the optimal build for the boat, team names and teams within building the boat.”
Nineteen-year-old electrical engineering major Addiston Thao formed the club because he wanted to be involved on campus.
“I decided to go on the website one day and look at all the clubs,” Thao said. “I didn’t find any specific club related to engineering.”
Thao said he didn’t form the club for his own benefit, but to help other students develop their leadership, communication and engineering analytical skills.
“We encourage them to design complex parts for our projects, to think outside of the box and apply physics principles,” Thao said.
The Curiosity Engineering Club also competes in competitions on campus like the bridge building competition with the Architecture Student Association.
Eric Anderson, an engineering professor, said he became the club’s advisor because of Thao and Singh’s passion and excitement.
“I wanted to be there to help them work on projects they wanted to do, because they really believe in empowering students to take ownership of their education,” Anderson said.