Rivian2025 – nowIrvine, California
A DECA research project on how Rivian could open up electric adventure to more people, and a follow-up idea for what its old batteries could do next.
Role Lead strategist in a team of three; Adventure Grid lead
Overview
For the 2025–26 DECA season, Amour Gundecha, Omer Anwar and I wrote a 20-page Buying and Merchandising Operations Research report on Rivian's sustainability strategy. We proposed Project Adventure: a rental and membership model that gets more people into electric adventure vehicles and gives back to conservation along the way.
| Event | DECA Buying and Merchandising Operations Research (BMOR) |
|---|---|
| Team | Amour Gundecha, Omer Anwar and me, Klein Cain DECA |
| My role | Lead strategist |
| When | Aug 2025 – Apr 2026 |
| Result | Advanced to ICDC 2026, Atlanta |
The idea
Electric adventure vehicles are expensive. We wanted a way in for people who aren't buying one, that also gives something back to the places they drive.
Proposal: Student proposal, not a Rivian program
Rental and membership
Renting or joining a membership puts an electric adventure vehicle within reach of people who wouldn't buy one.
what we designed for it
How we researched it
- Read through Rivian's “Forever” pledge and sustainability reports.
- Talked with Rivian staff about the company's mission.
- Visited Rivian's Houston service center several times.
- Worked with the Go For Glass initiative.
from our visits
How it went
We won our event at the Texas state conference, which sends one team per section to internationals, and competed at ICDC 2026 in Atlanta. I'm grateful to the Rivian staff and the Houston service center team who helped us along the way. My post about it
competition days
Adventure Grid
A retired EV battery still holds roughly 70–80% of its capacity. That's too much to send straight to recycling.
Adventure Grid is my own follow-up idea, separate from the DECA project: a rugged off-grid trailer filled with second-life batteries, towed by an R1T or R1S, bringing clean power to schools, clinics, shelters and places hit by disasters. I'm preparing it as a pitch for Rivian.
the concept so far
Where the power goes
Pick a place and what it needs powered.
A concept schematic. Capacity and runtime figures are not shown because they have not been published yet.
In the truck
The battery's first life.
In the trailer
A second life as backup power.
Recycled
Materials recovered at the very end.
What's next
Once there's a pilot, I'll measure Adventure Grid by how much battery capacity gets reused, how many sites it powers, and how much longer each pack stays useful before recycling.
still to add
- Our final result at ICDC 2026
- Which parts of the report I wrote
- The market and financial numbers from the report
