The FAMU-FSU College of Engineering’s annual Green & Gold 2019 Tailgate party was a big success this year with more than 400 people in attendance. This is the second year of the festive event that celebrates the partnership between the two universities.

The UK’s Defence Science and Technology Laboratory is working with UK industry and the US Navy to explore advanced energy storage options for British warships. Developed out of initial designs by FAMU-FSU Engineering-associated researchers at the Center for Advanced Power Systems (CAPS), the project is adapting motorsport technology to power the next generation of naval laser weapons.

Direct current (DC) powers flashlights, smartphones and electric cars, but major power users depend on alternating current (AC), which cycles on and off 60 times per second. Among the reasons: AC is simple to turn off when there’s a problem – known as a fault – such as a tree falling on a power line.

More and more systems are transitioning to DC power, but researchers are still trying to find the perfect way to turn off the power in these DC systems. A new collaboration between Florida State University and Georgia Tech could solve that problem.

For some undergraduate students at the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering, learning isn’t limited to the classroom and labs. Hands-on undergraduate research is encouraged, as well as supported.

Peter Cheetham, Ph.D., a research faculty member at the Center for Advanced Power Systems (CAPS), mentors three undergraduate engineering students who are now primary authors of research publications on projects they have been engaged with all year.

Michenell Louis-Charles can’t remember a time when he wasn’t interested in planes. The ins/outs of the engine, how they take off, the science behind the flight. The FAMU-FSU mechanical engineering student is a senior, currently studying thermal fluids at the Florida Center for Advanced Aero-Propulsion (FCAAP).