Engineering Portfolio

Cormac McQuillan

Engineering Projects & Experience

A growing collection of engineering projects that build practical skills, deepen understanding, and connect classroom concepts to real-world engineering experience.

Headshot of Cormac McQuillan

About

I am a civil engineering student at Oregon State University. My work focuses on understanding how real materials and systems behave by building small-scale setups and collecting data from those setups. I’m especially interested in structural behavior, construction practices, and the concepts that we base our infrastructure and cities around.

Projects

Solar-Powered Battery Charger

First-year electrical engineering project that introduced me to embedded hardware, power management, and practical prototyping.

Project Overview

This project implements a small solar-powered system that can charge a rechargeable battery and report key electrical values. The main goal was to design and assemble a complete hardware setup that takes energy from a solar panel, manages it safely, stores it in a battery, and displays what is happening in real time on an LCD screen.

What the System Includes

  • Microcontroller board that coordinates measurements and drives the display.
  • INA219 measurement board for reading panel and load voltage and current.
  • Charge controller to safely charge a 3.7 V, 1200 mAh battery.
  • Character LCD that shows system status and measured values.
  • 6 V solar panel as the primary energy source.
  • Breadboard-based wiring to connect and prototype all components together.

Engineering Skills Learned

  • Writing and structuring microcontroller firmware to coordinate sensors and outputs.
  • Configuring I²C communication between the microcontroller and the INA219 measurement board.
  • Driving a character LCD, updating text based on live measurements and system state.
  • Implementing basic control logic for charging modes and status messages.
  • Debugging embedded code and hardware together using serial output and targeted test cases.
  • Writing CircuitPython code to implement the logic that ties together sensor readings, charging behavior, and LCD updates.
  • Translating engineering requirements into clear, testable behavior in code.
Close-up of the breadboard wiring and components
Close-up of the breadboard wiring, including the microcontroller, measurement board, and charge controller that manage and monitor the solar charging process.

Project Photos

Overall view of the solar panel, breadboard circuit, and battery
Overall setup showing the 6 V solar panel, breadboard circuit, charge controller, microcontroller, battery, and LCD working together as a complete system.
LCD displaying system status and panel voltage under limited sunlight
LCD display indicating a limited sunlight condition and reporting the panel voltage, demonstrating that the system is actively measuring and reacting to real operating conditions.

Contact

Email

corm9098@gmail.com
mcquillc@oregonstate.edu

Phone

541-286-0172