20 May, 2025 – Mohawk College’s Battery Workforce team, in partnership with McMaster University, took home several awards, including first place, at the international Battery Workforce Challenge collegiate competition in Indianapolis this May. The team competed with 11 other university-college teams across North America.
As the competition progresses into its second year more than 10 Mohawk College students have an opportunity to take part through co-op and part-time work roles. Two Mohawk College students, Lamar Webb and Aalian Khan represented the college by travelling to the event and presenting as part of the Mohawk College-McMaster University team of students who placed 1st in Year 2 of the overall competition.
The competition offered Mohawk College’s Energy Power & Innovation Centre (EPIC) and Engineering Technology students and faculty the opportunity to participate in developing a battery pack for a Dodge RAM.
The Battery Workforce Challenge collegiate competition is a three-year engineering competition that challenges North American universities and their community college partners to design, build, test and integrate an advanced EV battery pack into a Stellantis vehicle. Students learn valuable project management, communications, teamwork and problem-solving skills that will provide them an unparalleled educational experience and ready them for careers in the battery industry.
This competition is the second in the three-year competition, which will culminate in 2026, with the winning teams receiving dozens of annual engineering and sponsor-related category awards; $100,000 in industry-provided prize money; and invaluable employment, collaboration, and networking opportunities with industry leaders.
Vocational Innovation in Battery Award
The Applied Research Course, co-developed by EPIC and the Engineering Technology department, received the Vocational Innovation in Battery Award. The award recognizes the college’s work to involve more than fifty Engineering Technology students over three terms in industry-based experiential learning opportunities with 25 students focusing on battery-related topics thanks to the work of Majlinda Qarri (Faculty Lead), Stuart Savickis (Mohawk Alumni), Sheikh Mohammed (EPIC) and Erica Daly (EPIC).
Excellence in Hardware in the Loop Innovation
The Mohawk-McMaster team took home the Excellence in Hardware in the Loop Innovation award, where Primo Wang (McMaster) lead the Battery Management System (BMS) development and working with Mohawk’s EPIC team to develop an additional deliverable, a cloud-based Battery Monitoring System that seamlessly integrated with the BMS. The combination of BMS and cloud monitoring impressed the judges, demonstrating real-time data of the prototype battery module.
The ongoing success of this project and impressive competition results are great examples of successful collaboration between Mohawk and McMaster, and shows the potential for faculty and students working together to complement each other’s expertise. Thank you to the leadership of Mohawk College’s Dr. Mariano Arriaga (EPIC) and Dr. Majlinda Qarri (Eng. Tech.) and McMaster University’s Dr. Saeid Habibi, and Romulo Viera (BWC project manager).
Congratulations to all the coordinators, students and faculty members for the impressive performance in this year’s challenge!