LEBANON — A team of Dartmouth engineering students are helping bring public electric bicycle charging to Lebanon.

Dartmouth seniors Avery Moorhead, Nathan McAllister, Gannon Forsberg and Grace Connolly paired up with Lebanon Energy and Facilities Manager Tad Montgomery in September to solve two separate problems: the city needed a low-cost skilled engineering team and the students needed an engaging senior capstone project. The team will give Montgomery a report that outlines design and implementation recommendations for e-bike charging stations around Lebanon.

“I don’t know where I would find an engineering team that has expertise in e-bike charging stations ... These Dartmouth students are very resourceful, they have lots of resources to tap into at Dartmouth and in the Upper Valley,” Montgomery said.

The project was born out of the 2023 Walk, Bike, Ride Leb report that assessed Lebanon’s infrastructure resources and how to create a safer, more accessible and less car-based transportation system. Montgomery began working early this year — at the request of City Manager Shaun Mulholland — to develop plans and cost estimates for solar-powered e-bike charging stations.

Before working with the team, the city learned that there was little to no funding available to do the design work, according to a September memo written by Montgomery.

This made the Dartmouth team, who also bring a range of expertise and resources despite being students, an ideal option, Montgomery said.

Students enrolled in Dartmouth’s Bachelor of Engineering program have to complete senior capstone projects through the Cook Engineering Design Center. This group is one of 28 teams working on different projects, Center Director Emily Monroe said. To her knowledge, this year is the first time Lebanon has been a sponsor.

The center matches student groups with “sponsors” such as companies and municipalities who have engineering needs. Monroe organizes these real-world projects before the start of the fall academic term.

Students are assigned to a team based on their background and preferences.

“I’m not sure if any of us chose this as our first choice (project) but for me I’m super grateful to be placed on this project … it combines all of this technology work with very real-world applications,” McAllister said. “I think working with the city forces us to consider some constraints that aren’t normally considered in academic engineering projects.”

While students enrolled in accredited engineering programs nationwide have to do capstone projects, Monroe said Dartmouth is unique because all of its projects are “industry-based” and always “interdisciplinary,” with teams comprised of students with different engineering specializations.

On this team, McAllister is specializing in mechanical engineering, while the team’s other members are energy and electrical engineering students. Moorhead said she is especially interested in electricity as it relates to green infrastructure, which drew her to the project.

“It’s also great to see your work in a tangible sense given that it’s a local project where many of the projects aren’t local so you might never see any result of your work,” Moorhead said.

The city hopes to build three to five electric bike charging stations around Lebanon in “high-use areas” and has identified Kilton Library, two locations on the pedestrian mall and Colburn Park as possible charging locations, according to the students’ project pre-proposal. The team has to determine if these are the best charging locations.

It also has to address remaining logistical questions such as whether solar panels are a viable option to power the stations, what kind of chargers the team should design or city should purchase, if the city can charge residents for using the stations and how to fund the project.

So far, the Dartmouth team has conducted preliminary research and created a digital survey to assess key questions.

They released the survey Nov. 13 through the city email network and posted QR code links around town in areas with a lot of bike activity, Moorhead said. Responses were due Nov. 30.

The team has almost completed a report for the city “fulfilling all of their requests,” McAllister said. Because of their overwhelming interest in electrical work, he said that during the winter term they are “pivoting” to designing an e-bike fire prevention system so that they can do more “technical electrical work.”

Despite the unexpected shift, “it’s been really interesting to work on a project that’s actually getting applied versus an engineering project where you might just build something and not see an outcome to it. It’s been great to work with the city and think about how the project impacts stakeholders,” Moorhead said.

Montgomery will use the students’ report to present design and cost estimates to the city manager. He had hoped to do this by the end of the year but said “that may be delayed because of the extra effort needed to bring in the Dartmouth team.”

Clare Shanahan can be reached at cshanahan@vnews.com or 603-727-3216.