Abstract
This document is the final Electrical Engineering senior project report for Cal Poly’s 2025 Marine Energy Collegiate Competition (MECC) team. The goal of this project is to build and test a wave-energy converter designed to address the need for sustainable power generation for remote coastal community microgrids. These existing systems often rely on costly, fossil-fuel generators, creating both logistical and environmental challenges. Our device aims to provide a renewable, low-maintenance solution that can operate reliably in offshore environments and serve commercial or research applications. The goal of the electrical engineering team was to develop a system that can convert rotational energy to electrical energy and efficiently transmit the energy from an off-shore buoy to an on-shore battery pack. Additionally, a robust safety system was developed to allow the system to shut down manually and when excessive currents are detected. This project was completed alongside a team of mechanical engineers who designed a rotating inertial mass device to convert wave energy to rotational energy. Testing proved that the system was able to successfully generate and deliver 17W of power to a battery when powered by a handheld drill. The full system efficiency for the prototype was approximately 63%. This report will cover the details of the design, manufacturing, and testing of this system.