Summer 2026: Introduction to Marine Energy
A 3-week short course for rising juniors, and seniors at UW Bothell, Seattle, and Tacoma. This course will provide a broad overview of themes relevant to marine energy and introduce students to technical skills relevant to work in marine energy and related ocean applications.
Course Description
This course will introduce students to marine energy with a focus on current energy converters (turbines) used in riverine, tidal, and ocean applications. Course content will include key mechanical and electrical concepts, system design and operations, resource assessments for power production, and environmental considerations. Students will explore these themes through a combination of in-person learning and short, asynchronous videos and activities to be reviewed and completed independently.
The hands-on element of the course includes a week of in-person activities at the UW Seattle campus designing for operations at sea, working with field-scale turbine prototypes, testing and analyzing prototype turbines in the laboratory and using a UW research vessel (see pictures). As part of the experience students will be exposed to a variety of field-going equipment, including mooring components, ocean instrumentation, research vessels, and power electronics designed for ocean applications.
Students will participate in laboratory and field-based testing (R/V Russell Davis Light) in team-based activity. Each team will collect and analyze experimental data and summarize performance findings using axial-flow turbines like commercial wind turbines, but designed for underwater operations.
At the end of the course students will be able to describe the key principles informing system design, measure and present system performance, and integrate the challenges of working at sea into the design process.
Course instructors
Left to right: Dr. Chris Bassett (UW Seattle), Dr. Brian Polagye (UW Seattle), Dr. Imen Hannachi (UW Bothell), Dr. Heather Dillon (UW Tacoma), Dr. Eli Patten (UW Seattle).
All courses will run with support from research staff and professional ocean, mechanical, and electrical engineers from UW Seattle’s Applied Physics Laboratory.
The Nuts and Bolts:
Dates: August 24th – September 11th, 2026
- Half-day in person attendance required on August 25–27 at your home campus (UW Tacoma, UW Bothell, or UW Seattle). Timing (morning vs. afternoon) will be determined based on feedback in the application form.
- Full-day (09:00 to 17:00) in-person attendance on campus at UW Seattle is required from August 31st through September –4th. Note: Students requiring accommodation in Seattle will be provided with free on-campus (dormitory) housing during the week of activities on the UW Seattle campus.
- Additional asynchronous modules, approximately a half dozen in total, which will include short (30 min or less) lectures and related activities are to be completed before September 4th.
Credit: This is an intensive 2-credit course (TME 499 for UW Tacoma, BME 498 for UW Bothell, or ME 498 for UW Seattle) which will count towards your credit load in autumn quarter 2026. Students enrolled full-time (12-18 credits) during the Fall quarter can enroll at no cost. Note that these 2 credits will count towards fall enrollment, so a full 18-credit load would leave room for only 16 credits in the standard Fall quarter. Although you will take the course in late summer, it will be reflected on your fall quarter transcript.
UW Seattle students: Please note that these credits do not count towards full-time requirement for the Fall (i.e., students still need to register for at least 14 additional qualifying credits). These are also tuition barring credits meaning that students who exceed 18 credits will be required to pay the additional tuition.
Grading:
Course-grades will be based on participation in in-person activities and completion of all asynchronous modules.
Prerequisites:
There are no specific course perquisites or limitations on admissions, although the course material will focus heavily on content most relevant to mechanical engineers. Data analysis requires the use of Excel, Python, or Matlab and the ability to perform basic calculations (including defining and working with variables, arithmetic, and analytical integration; for those working in Python or Matlab the ability to write simple functions and execute for/while loops is helpful).
Rising juniors and seniors at all three campuses are welcome to apply for enrollment.
Activities:
While at UW activities will take place in several places on campus in addition to a small UW research vessel. Our goal is to maximize participation in as many of these activities across campus and on Lake Washington as possible. We will reach out to students after confirming enrollment to identify necessary accessibility accommodations needed and to identify alternate activities when needed.
Enrollment:
Due to limited capacity the ability to enroll is not guaranteed. Course enrollment is limited to 8 undergraduate students per UW campus. Enrollment priority will be given to students with an opportunity to participate in marine energy Capstone projects in the 26/27 academic year (options will be available to senior engineering students at all three campuses). At UW Seattle, consideration will also be given to those involved with the WA Wave registered student organization.
Application form here
Applications are due by 11:59pm April 15th, 2026.
We intend to confirm enrollment with selected students by April 23rd, 2026.