Josh Brangan's senior project: A steering aid for competitive rowing

Engineering Design Projects (ES 100), the capstone course at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), challenges seniors to engineer a creative solution to a real-world problem.

Semi-automatic Rudder Correcting and Position Feedback System for Racing Rowing Boat

Josh Brangan, S.B. '26, Mechanical Engineering

Advisor: Sam Meijer

• Please give a brief summary of your project.

It's a rudder-centering tracking system used for coxed eight-person rowing boats. It's an aid for a coxswain or any steersperson to help them go straight.

• What real-world challenge does your project address?

In competitive rowing, the boat has to be steered. Steering issues happen at all levels of rowing, from novice all the way up to the Olympic level. The aim of this project was to get rowers from A to B in the quickest time possible with the straightest line. 

• How did you come up with this idea for your final project?

Rowing's been a huge part of my life for probably about 10 years now. Every boat I've been in, there's always some form of steering issue. It happens all across the rowing world. I was inspired by a project from another guy on the Harvard men's team from 2019, a guy named Sam Meijer. I wanted to bridge the gap between his GPS project and the user-centered steering system of my device. 

• What part of the project did you enjoy the most?

The real-world testing was probably the most interesting part. I think it's always easy to have a theoretical idea of what you want your project to be and how you want it to turn out. But then you come to building and actually testing it, and then you get some wildly different results than what you expected in your design. But then you account for them and iterate the design, and making that a part of your design process was pretty was a cool experience.

• Do you plan to continue the project?

I ultimately want to make this into a real world device that can be on the market. I think it's the first step in the project that I ultimately want to build, combining my project and my advisor's project. But I think it's the first step on a cool project that could revolutionize rowing steering around the world.