Penn state University A Multi-Disciplinary and Multi-University Capstone Experience engineering students, ASABE members Jacob Haskins, Joseph Marino, Brendan McGinn, and Yarin Shmilovitch, who worked on the project throughout their two-semester capstone experience. In the fall semester, the Penn State team evaluated cus-tomer needs and generated design concepts. The team met with Wes Miller of A.M. Logging LLC in Centre Hall, Pennsylvania, for a first-hand look at how forest materials Jeffrey Catchmark and Megan Marshall are harvested and processed. At the end of the fall semester, the team members presented their concept of a continuous tudents from different pyrolysis process to produce biochar. disciplines and univer-In the spring semester, the team per-sities working on inter-formed lab pyrolysis tests using woody connected projects—this was residue samples collected at A.M. the capstone format pro-Logging, they finalized the design, and posed by ASABE member they constructed a proof-of-concept pro-Daniel Ciolkosz, one of our totype. The team leveraged skills from colleagues in Penn State’s their prior coursework to complete mass Department of Agricultural and energy balances for the pyrolysis and Biological Engineering. process and develop engineering draw-In 2020, Dan and his collab-ings of the prototype. orators at Virginia Tech, The prototype was designed to oper-West Virginia University, ate manually with a screw auger to move and SUNY College of woody residue into a heated chamber Environmental Science and and then remove the biochar. Randall Forestry received a USDA-Bock, the ABE fabrication lab manager, NIFA grant to fund the Mid-trained the team on the tools, including a Atlantic Sustainable Biomass plasma cutter, TIG and MIG welders, for Value-Added Products bandsaw, and grinder. Woody debris from a flail delimber at A.M. Consortium (MASBio). The multi-university and multi-discipli-One goal of MASBio is Logging in Centre Hall, Pennsylvania. nary capstone experience turned out to to support undergraduate be a winning format. As Dan Ciolkosz projects in which student explained, “Each team shared updates on teams work together to its part of the project and provided feed-achieve a larger objective back and information to the other teams. related to the grant. In the For example, the West Virginia team 2021-2022 academic year, focused on the economics of project devel-student teams were asked to opment and used costing and production develop a concept for a information from the Penn State team as mobile biochar production the basis for their modeling efforts.” unit that could be moved to The Penn State students agreed that different logging sites. The they gained a lot from the experience. biochar would be used as a Brendan McGinn summarized the experi-soil amendment for reclama-ence as follows: “Capstone was a great tion of marginal land. bridge between college and industry. It Each team focused on a helped me become a more confident com-different aspect of the proj-municator and learn new approaches to ect: site development and open-ended problem solving.” economic analysis (West As capstone instructors, that is exactly Virginia), feedstock avail-the outcome we hope for! ability and logistics (Virginia Tech), environmental impact ASABE member Jeffrey Catchmark, Professor, and Megan Marshall, Associate assessment (SUNY ESF), and Teaching Professor, Department of engineering design (Penn Agricultural and Biological Engineering, Penn Capstone student and ASABE member Jacob State). The Penn State team State University, University Park, USA, Haskins works on prototype fabrication. jmc102@psu.edu. consisted of four biological S 24 September/October 2022 RESOURCE