Jon DeMarco, executive director of the Presque Isle Partnership.
Three senior design teams innovate products for Presque Isle Partnership
Presque Isle State Park in Erie is one of Pennsylvania’s most popular state parks, attracting 4 million visitors a year. The 3,200- acre sandy peninsula stretches into Lake Erie and offers seven miles of sandy beaches, boating, fishing, hiking, bicycling, birding, and more.
While it might seem hard to improve on, the Presque Three senior design teams innovate products for Presque Isle Partnership Isle Partnership, an official nonprofit partner to the Department of Conservation and National Resources (DCNR) at Presque Isle, is committed to doing just that.
The partnership hosts fundraising events and generates private support for projects that enhance the park, including mobility mats and beach wheelchairs, lifeguard stations, playgrounds, and more. The partnership receives support from the community, businesses, donors, and its large network of volunteers. In the fall of 2023, they added a new working partner: Penn State Behrend’s School of Engineering.
The organization sponsored three senior design capstone projects, challenging Behrend students to design a mobile application for the park, a lighting display, and an alternative power solution for the annual Presque Isle Lights winter event.
Jon DeMarco, executive director of the Presque Isle Partnership, was impressed from his first meeting with the students.
“The students in each group were very thorough from the start, making sure that they understood the deliverables and the parameters they had to work within,” he said. “From a client perspective, they were on top of it. They were focused and knew what their goals were.”
When working with clients, like DeMarco, students gain not only engineering experience, but an opportunity to refine other important skills, like teamwork, communication, and time management.
“They were proactive in communicating, which was really important to me,” DeMarco said. “There was never a time when I had to seek an update. They kept me up to speed.”
Project No. 1—Mobile Application
Team members: Quincy Nguyen, Max Smith, Eric Petika, Collin Myers
The challenge: Develop a smartphone application for Presque Isle Partnership to enhance the visitor experience, provide navigation, and provide a way to send out important alerts.
The result: Students came up with an engaging cross-platform application called “MyPI.” The application includes an interactive map with filters to customize the experience, an events calendar, a food truck locator, FAQs, and the ability to get directions to a location at the park from their current location.
The sponsor’s response: “They did a really great job,” DeMarco said. “It looked great, worked well, and included everything I asked for and then some. There is a little refining that needs to take place before we launch the app, though. We decided not to rush it out, but to take our time and tweak it to perfection.”
Project No. 2—Lighting Display
Team Members: Joseph Cyrilla, Cole Roberto, Conner Rossey, Mark Sedlak
The challenge: Create a large lighting display for the partnership’s annual holiday lights drive-through event. The display had to be programmable; easily assembled and taken apart; able to withstand Erie’s worst winter weather; sturdy, but lightweight; and compact for storage reasons.
The result: In the researching phase of the project, students came across a commercially available product—a programmable LED matrix that looks like a curtain of hanging lights—that fulfilled many of the project’s requirements. The team then developed a tent-frame structure and bracing system to hold the 10-foot-by-10-foot matrix that required no external tools and weighed just 3 pounds.
The sponsor’s response: “The curtain lights offered a unique visual addition to Presque Isle Lights,” DeMarco said. “We used it at the entrance to the park and had it programmed to display falling snowflakes and a trotting deer, which were absolutely fitting to the event’s overall theme of nature and the winter season.”
Project No. 3—Alternative Power Solution
Team members: Dominic Yeso, Anthony Roberto, Owen Flisnik
The challenge: Design an environmentally friendly, portable power source that does not rely on gas or electricity and can be communicated with remotely for the Presque Isle Lights winter event. It needed to be selfcontained, air-tight and weather-proof, and light enough for two people to handle. “If I placed this power station at Perry Monument, I wanted a way to check the power level and turn it off remotely, without having to drive out there at 8:00 p.m. in the middle of a snowstorm,” DeMarco said.
The result: Students started with an insulated plastic picnic cooler with a handle and wheels, which they fitted with a 12-volt rechargeable battery and solar charger, a temperature and humidity regulation system, and a remote communication system via cell phone. They were careful to build it in such a way that components can be easily replaced, if needed. The unit weighed in at just 90 pounds.
The sponsor’s response: “During Presque Isle Lights, we used the power pack to replace the combustion generator that powered two booths (where volunteers collected donations), spotlights, and a stereo system,” DeMarco said. “It eliminated the noise pollution of the combustion generator as well as the smell of gasoline fumes, which our volunteers greatly appreciated. It also packed enough punch to power the donation area for two full weekends without needing a charge. It is clean and quiet and sustainably built. I could see us using a dozen of these on the park.”
Final reflections
“Working with Behrend students on these projects was a really great experience,” DeMarco said. “I think they were excited to do something for Presque Isle, a peaceful place to exercise mind, body, and spirit, a place that means so much to so many people.”