This may be our view in a few weeks if everything goes according to plan!!

This week we made the plans to visit Cisco’s Penn 1 office in NYC on November 17th and 18th! We’re so excited for the opportunity to tour and work with Cisco’s next generation FMP demo that is currently being showcased in NYC – we had to make sure to catch this before the demo heads to London! Big thanks to our Liaison, Neal Tilley, our Sponsor, Craig Legrande, and Dr. Latorre, Arielle, and the IPPD team for making this possible!

Beyond that exciting news, the StadiumPulse Team made strives towards our prototype design with PID and SLDR right around the corner.

• Began learning and working in Simscape and Revit for our power models/simulations and cable and device layout plans
• Set up our stadium tour and meeting with Kevin Hurley to document and familiarize ourselves with the stadium we are developing this next-gen fault managed power system for. We also will gain insights into the stadium upgrade plans to incorporate our retrofit for and help inform design decisions.

We had a busy week making progress on multiple fronts and adapting to a few hurdles! Here is what we’ve been working on:

• Starting the Cost-Benefit Analysis: We started digging into UF financial statements to lay the groundwork for our financial modeling and cost analysis.
• Adapting Our Software Strategy: Since dCloud access is taking longer than expected to get set up, we looked into alternative options and are testing out Simscape to keep our work moving forward without delays.
• Aligning Team Requirements: We worked through our individual senior design requirements to ensure each of us is hitting the right degree-specific milestones.
• Implementing PDR Feedback: Following our sponsors’ input from the PDR, we began shifting our focus toward the fan experience and safety benefits, as well as taking a deeper dive into the extra benefits of Gen2 FMP.

Overall, it’s been a solid week of adjusting our strategy and sharpening our project direction. More updates coming soon!

On Friday, October 9th, we were fortunate enough to welcome our Executive Sponsor and Liaison Engineer to campus for our Preliminary Design Review (PDR) presentation. This was a very exciting day for our team, as it was our first opportunity to finally meet them in person after weeks of communicating through emails and virtual meetings. We really enjoyed getting to speak with them face-to-face and share everything we had been working on over the past few weeks. Overall, the presentation went great!

However, figuring out the logistics leading up to the meeting was slightly complicated, as it was homecoming weekend and most of campus was closed on the day of our presentation. We attempted to secure parking passes and reserve a nice room to host our sponsors, but it seemed like everything was going wrong due to the campus closure. Thankfully, everything worked out in the end, as we were able to secure the IPPD room in the Nuclear Sciences Building and successfully hold our PDR presentation there.

The feedback we received was very positive and helpful in guiding us in the right direction as we continue moving forward with our project. We were especially appreciative of the wealth of knowledge and experience that both our Executive Sponsor and Liaison Engineer shared with us. Their insights were extremely valuable, and we are very grateful for the opportunity to learn from them.

Our team is excited to continue working on our project, building on the progress we have made so far, and learning more along the way!

This week the team has located potential locations we could visit to obtain the UF Stadium’s Construction Documents. After our Liaison meeting the team plans to visit the UF Planning, Design and Construction(UF PDU) building and find out who we can speak to about obtaining the documents. In the picture you can see that their office is attached to the UF stadium, which is where we plan to visit.

Our initial deadline to obtain the documents was October 1st, but since that date has passed we are taking a more proactive approach. If the UF PDU is not able to connect us with someone we will continue sending emails to potential contacts and visiting locations. We also have a backup plan in place of using our sponsor’s construction documents from their previous projects on stadiums. We would also use our sponsor’s design software suite, dCloud, to simulate the UF stadium based on other stadium’s construction documents.

Pictured: A simple FMP network using the hub-and-spokes topology

Week 5 was primarily spent moving the architecture from conceptual design into layout. We produced deployment schematics for three candidate FMP topologies (hub-and-spokes, bus, and ring) and mapped each across the stadium envelope. We then bounded the analysis to four representative zones (security outpost, tunnel, concession stands, and skybox suite). These sections provide the design constraints that will drive the final scalable model.

We have also nearly completed the Preliminary Design Review report. The document’s sections and supporting research were allocated by teammate to match each member’s area of expertise. The report consolidates our FMP literature review, the PDS, the topology concept analysis, and the project plan through the SLDR.

We are now preparing to present it to our stakeholders on Tuesday. The presentation will cover the different network topologies under consideration, comparing their trade-offs against the Florida Field layout and the Class 4 design constraints from our literature review. We will also present our idea to perform per-zone load analysis for four sections of the stadium, the prototype and simulation plan, and the milestones between now and the SLDR. The goal is to surface the open technical decisions (such as receiver placement and transmitter sizing) early, so the design review becomes a working session rather than a status update.

Thanks for reading, and follow the series for weekly insight as we bring the next-generation power architecture to our home stadium.

Not the flashiest week, but a productive one.

We spent most of it reading. Our liaison sent over a Class‑4 power design deck, our coach added two Panduit/Cisco guides on smart building DC distribution, and by the end of the week we had a much better handle on how FMP actually gets designed into a building.

Speaking of which, above was our first pass at mapping the system:

Red lines are power, blue is data, green is both traveling together. Everything feeds down to the PoE devices at the end: cameras, WAPs, smart lights, the media center. Simple in concept, less simple in a stadium. The question we left on the board was tree or ring topology and then we realized we don’t really get to pick. Whatever’s already built into Ben Hill Griffin is what we’re designing around. Which made getting our hands on the stadium plans suddenly feel a lot more urgent.

So: detective work. We filed a public records request, emailed UF Planning, Design & Construction, and tracked down Crawford’s project manager for the stadium. Three doors knocked, waiting to see which one opens.

We also set up a shared folder with our coach and liaison and locked in our PDR date.

Next up: a standards deep dive (NEC, ATIS, NEMA, UL) and picking an FMP site to visit in person.

Can’t wait to show you what we dig up next week. Go Gators 🐊

We’re excited to share our milestones from this past week:

1. First Liaison & Sponsor Call – Met with our Cisco Liaison Engineer and Sponsor from Mainstay for an exciting hour‑long kickoff. We clarified project goals: a scalable FMP architecture for a portion of UF’s stadium and accompanying analysis of FMP vs. existing AC, green space design vs. retrofitting the system, and cost/construction/time/efficiency/user experience analysis.
2. Scope Tightening – Closed in on the “green space” architecture to begin with, defined constraints from existing conduits, corridors, and structural parameters, and set the order of tasks: design the section → analyze restrictions → finalize the scalable model.
3. FMP Research – Reviewed Cisco case studies and researched Class‑4 power systems. 
4. Documentation – Completed the stakeholder model. From that, we drafted the first set of Product Design Specifications to build upon as the project progresses.
5. Next Steps – We’ll be requesting the current MEP plans, scheduling a meeting with the architect currently working on stadium upgrades, working towards a Cisco or FMP project site visit and potentially attaining FMP components for us to prototype and work with, and start building a high level model for the “green space” and the FMP flowchart.

Thanks for reading and follow the series for weekly insights as we bring the next‑generation power architecture to our home football stadium!

Welcome to the first post from the Stadium Pulse team!
We’re a multidisciplinary team of engineers developing the Florida Field Fault‑Managed Power (FMP) project for Mainstay Cisco. Our mission is to replace the arena’s legacy AC power system with a scalable, fully‑communicative Class‑4 FMP system that can envelope lights, Wi‑Fi, cameras, the media center, and practically anything electrical over the communicative network system for the UF Football stadium. Stay tuned for updates along the way!