Wesley Williams

E4C had a nice article covering some of the background on the Waves to Water Prize and updates on current activities at Jennette’s Pier.

https://www.engineeringforchange.org/news/nrel-fast-forwarding-emerging-desalination-tech-powered-wave-energy/

A couple of good articles about the cool work that Casey Nichols is doing out at the National Renewable Energy Lab in Boulder, Colorado.

https://cleantechnica.com/2021/08/13/nrels-thermoplastic-blade-research-dives-deep-with-verdant-powers-tidal-energy-turbines/

https://www.nrel.gov/news/program/2021/searay-preps-for-hawaii.html

The WaterBros team is eagerly awaiting the judging of the CREATE stage of the Waves to Water competition.  It was a wild and quick summer, but I’m proud of the work that we did and hopeful that we get to continue our adventure at Jennette’s Pier in April.

Best of luck to Appalachian State University’s Solar Vehicle Team as they compete in the Formula Sun Grand Prix and American Solar Challenge.  The car looks great as you can see below and it was a pleasure working with them on some analysis of the roll cage and manufacturing the occasional components.

Photo by Kyla Willoughby.

More details at:

https://sunergy.appstate.edu/asc-2021/

A nice article from NREL on the WaterBros team and a team from MIT participating in the CREATE stage of the Waves to Water Prize.

https://www.nrel.gov/news/program/2021/university-dive-into-desalination-challenge.html

There are a couple of research assistant opportunities for the Fall 2021 semester

• Thermal mechanical modeling project (1 position) -12 months, monthly stipend but tuition is not included
• Mechanical design and prototyping (2 positions) – 9 months, monthly stipend but tuition is not included
• Industrial Networking Engineer (1 position) – 12 months, monthly stipend and tuition, (US citizenship required)

More details can be found at and the process for applying can be found on my

‘Research Positions and Recommendations Page’

I’m glad to be back in Charlotte after a week of wave tank testing at the University of New Hampshire.  The tank time was huge for the WaterBros team as we make our way through the Waves to Water competition.  The weather was beautiful, the campus was awesome and everyone we met was friendly and helpful.  Special thanks to John Ahern for all of his training on the wave tank and assistance with the setup and testing.

Landon at the command station driving the waves.

Test waves in the tank.