Through the Makerspaces at William & Mary, Tribe students field a race team for the American Society of Naval Engineers’ Promoting Electric Propulsion competition. Even though we’re small and go against much larger, highly funded engineering schools, the Tribe performs.
Currently, the William & Mary Racing team is comprised of:
Team Captain: Michael Kelly Galdamez
Seniors: Isaiah Lemmond, Ben Monforth
Junior Members: Keyra Ogura, Megan Blake
Academically, these competitions serve to get the students hands-on experience in advanced materials, electronics, marine design, electric propulsion systems, and remote & autonomous control. Every racing USV (Unmanned Surface Vehicle) that the Tribe fields is hand built from scratch by the students.
This years’ USV is an all carbon-fiber (hand layup by Michael Galdamez & Isaiah Lemmond), dual 10kW BLDC direct drive system, featuring 2 300A ESCs, closed loop cooling systems, active aerodynamics. These are controlled via a dual short range / long range telemetry system and MCU offering GPS wayfinding, autonomous navigation, and control. The drive train components were fabricated by students, installed, and iteratively improved by students, and tested by students. The propellers were designed by the students and manufacturing using additive manufacturing in the Makerspaces. A handful of Tribe is worth dozens of students from other schools 😀
The team is advised by Jonathan Frey, P.E. whom serves the Tribe as Makerspace Director & Faculty in Applied Science having a professional engineering license focused on control systems theory in electrical and computer engineering.
Below you’ll find recent videos of our unmanned ( & autonomous) surface vehicle (USV) testing on campus at Lake Matoaka as well as performing Bollard Pull tests in the indoor pool at Adair.
Captain Michael Kelly Galdamez operating the all electric USV
AY ’25-26 Team working on the autonomous control systems in the new ISC4 Makerspace.
Bollard Pull Testing in Adair
AY ’24-25 Team Photo
While dramatically smaller in team size and funding than the other competitors (Princeton, Texas A&M, VT, etc.), Tribe students and faculty pack a proverbial punch and are a testament to how liberal arts excel at engineering in the modern age.
Due to the varied and changing landscape of higher education, and as we move into our new ISC4 home, The Makerspaces currently lack administrative funding for staffing. While materials for the USV competition are funded by the Office of Naval Research, many hands-on programs like this are held aloft by daily support from The Makerspaces at William & Mary.
If you are able, consider supporting William & Mary Racing and myriad programs like it through a tax deductible donation to The Makerspaces at William & Mary by entering in our specific fund identifier (6102) at Give.wm.edu.
Thank you, and GO TRIBE!