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Anusha Srinivas of Bridgewater, a graduate of Raritan Valley Community College, presented her Green Energy Golf Cart project at the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) Northeast Section 2021 Annual Conference, held October 21-23 at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts. Srinivas' efforts were rewarded, receiving 1st Place as the “Best Student Paper” at the conference, along with a $200 prize for her work.

Srinivas created the golf cart as part of her Honors Authentic Engineering Project course, taught by Professor Peter Stupak, at RVCC during the 2019-2020 academic year. She graduated from the College in spring 2020 with an Associate of Science degree in Pre-Medicine and Pre-Pharmacy. Srinivas is currently a student at New Jersey Institute of Technology.

A golfer who has a strong interest in engineering, Srinivas enrolled in RVCC’s Authentic Engineering Experience course, which offers students the opportunity to create a real product in one semester. While in the program, she made innovative design changes to a hand-pulled golf cart to generate sustainable “green electrical energy” that could be used to charge a cell-phone battery, as well as cool a beverage when a player is on the golf course. Srinivas used the rotational energy from one of the golf cart wheels to turn a DC motor that performed as an electrical generator to charge her phone. Additionally, she used a solar panel to generate electricity to operate a thermoelectric cooler that becomes cold on one side to cool the beverage and warm on the opposite side. A heat-sink and small fans were used to efficiently vent the excess heat back into the environment.

Some of the parts that Srinivas designed for her project were machined by RVCC’s Advanced Manufacturing students.

RVCC is located at 118 Lamington Road in Branchburg, NJ. For further information, visit www.raritanval.edu.

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

October 26, 2021

Media contact: Donna Stolzer, 908-526-1200, ext. 8383

PR #33