By Rachel Prior, April 21, 2026
Tens of students file into an engineering lab in Building 17 at Cal Poly Pomona every Saturday at 10 a.m. to discuss the game plan for the day before dividing up to conquer the task of building a solar-powered boat from the ground up.
The Solar Boat Club, which designs and builds solar-powered boats to race in collegiate competitions, has worked to rebuild the organization over the past couple of years.
After struggling to gain members during the COVID-19 pandemic, the club is now experiencing a surge of new members looking to get hands-on engineering experience.
“COVID was a really bad year for us,” said Elijah Tolosa, president of the Solar Boat Club and electrical engineer major, “It kind of killed us, almost.”
With no way to build a boat while in lockdown, the club had trouble retaining members. Students left and many graduated, leaving only a few students with experience in the club, according to Tolosa.
Since the lockdown lifted, the club worked to rebuild by recruiting new members and reorganizing its leadership and team structure.
After a slow start, efforts of tabling at club fairs and promoting through word of mouth began to pay off, and the club experienced a boom in membership.
“We started off with like 15 people, and now we’re at like 60,” Tolosa said.
Due to the growth of the club, the organization’s student leaders decided to break the club into several sub–teams, each focusing on a different aspect of the boat’s design and construction. Focuses like mechanical systems and electrical systems have allowed different students to specialize in their major, while still learning to collaborate and contribute to the larger project, Tolosa said.
“We’re pretty much building everything from scratch,” said Liam Kaschner, the club’s mechanical engineering lead. “We’re making a 14-foot carbon fiber hull, doing our own propellers, our own steering, our own electronics.”
Working to build a boat powered by converting sunlight into electricity while also actively regrowing the club itself has not come without its challenges, according to Kaschner.
While working to keep the project on track and moving forward, officers of the club must also organize members, coordinate schedules and secure funds.
Kaschner said finding a way to get sufficient funds has been a difficult process. Building a boat from scratch is expensive, and he highlights the importance of sponsorships and fundraisers for a project of this scale.
“Getting access to our money has been a challenge,” Kaschner said. “We would not be able to do anything we are doing here with the amount of money that we’re given just from the school.”
Electrical engineering lead Sean Wygant mentioned the process of restarting has also required a lot of patience and problem-solving from everybody involved.
While classroom learning creates a foundation for their knowledge, Tolosa said the club provides hands-on experience and pushes members to learn how to research and solve problems independently.
At Solar Boat Club, students design and build components for a solar-powered boat, test their ideas, implement what they are taught and learn from mistakes during the engineering process.
“One of my favorite parts of being in an engineering club is that we’re actually doing the stuff that we’re learning in class,” Kaschner said.
The club focuses on being structured to mirror the way a professional engineering team would operate, with students collaborating across different disciplines to solve technical challenges.
Mechanical engineers focus on the boat’s structure and propulsion system, while electrical and computer engineers work on power systems, control systems and data monitoring. Most students work in groups of four or five.
According to Kaschner, students spend two to three hours every Saturday in labs and workshops discussing designs, solving problems and learning to support each other as they work toward the same goal of completing the boat and bringing it to competition.
“A lot of the people I’ve met through this club have honestly changed my life,” Wygant said.
After a couple years of rebuilding, Tolosa feels the club is finally back to working at full capacity and focused on advancing their project to the next level.
“Before, we just spent most of our time building what we knew,” Tolosa said. “Our club has evolved from ‘Let’s build a boat with what we have,’ to ‘Let’s use what we have to build the best thing possible.’”
