POSE: Phase II: Expansion and Adoption of Impact Allies Clean Energy and Environment OSE

About This Grant

This Pathways to Enable Open-Source Ecosystems (POSE) project is focused on high demand, widely available, learning resources in emerging fields such as datasets, lab equipment, and educational tools. This project builds upon the Impact Allies Renewable Energy (RE) open-source ecosystem (OSE), which was developed to support students, teachers, and researchers in their work with energy systems. The RE OSE offers free, easy-to-use software, tutorials, hardware schematics, and real-time data. Previously, these resources were either too expensive or restricted to large companies, limiting adoption in K-12 and higher education. By offering free or low-cost alternatives, the platform helps schools prepare students for careers in fields crucial for the growth of the U.S. workforce. Access to its live data sets also enables research that was once only possible in corporate environments to be conducted at universities. The RE OSE has expanded to encompass over 30 resources utilized by more than 80 schools and is supported by major energy and manufacturing companies. This project expands the reach of the RE OSE into additional high-demand areas, including manufacturing, environmental science, and emerging energy technologies. The project also expands capacity for teacher training, provides additional valuable data for research, and increases access for all students to career pathways that strengthen the U.S. technical workforce. This POSE project builds upon the successful RE OSE platform that addressed gaps in educational software, hardware, and datasets for energy education. The goal of this project is to expand the OSE to increase consumer adoption, add products, and support academic teaching and research in high-demand technical fields. Prior to RE OSE, consumers, researchers, and educators interested in adding energy assets had neither open-source software nor hardware to control, connect, and modify systems, nor free access to large open data sets to analyze variables affecting solutions. This gap stalled adoption, education, and research. RE OSE addresses the challenges through an intuitive, open-source ecosystem for energy education, which will be expanded to manufacturing, environmental science, and emerging energy fields. The OSE platform will be enhanced with broader functionality, and the governance model will focus on quality control, cybersecurity, and long-term maintenance. Key technical activities include: 1) adding open-source hardware, software, and educational content; 2) increasing the size of real-time data sets; and 3) building the user base. Professional development will drive adoption and contributions. This effort supports scalable growth in key technical fields and strengthens the U.S. workforce in technology and data science. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.