Highlights
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Since launching in 2021, Reserve Mercury — a cellular communication platform developed by UCF Senior Design college students in partnership with the U.S. Military Reserve — has expanded nationwide, simplifying administrative work and decreasing delays for 1000’s of reservists.
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New senior design groups proceed advancing the platform, with this 12 months’s crew centered on enhancing pace, safety and system stability.
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The long-running mission supplies college students with hands-on expertise constructing and sustaining real-world software program techniques that immediately help navy operations.
5 years after UCF pc science college students first helped the U.S. Military Reserve (USAR) construct a tech answer to reinforce effectivity, Knights are nonetheless enhancing the platform — and the affect retains rising.
Reserve Mercury, a cellular and net software designed to switch gradual, paper-based administrative processes utilized by Military Reserve items, is now being utilized by 1000’s of reservists nationwide. What began as Challenge Mercury — a student-led effort to switch paper varieties — has advanced right into a long-running collaboration between scholar builders in UCF’s Senior Seminar Course, the Protection Innovation Unit (DIU) and the USAR.
Initially launched in 2023, the app digitized the Army Reserve’s DA 1380 submission process — a handbook workflow that when required troopers to print varieties, bodily route paperwork by way of chains of command and await approvals tied to compensation and repair information.
Now, troopers can digitally submit pay, absence and medical varieties throughout the platform from any machine. Leaders can then evaluate and approve submissions immediately, serving to cut back delays and guarantee troopers are paid on time.
However the momentum behind Challenge Mercury didn’t finish at launch.
Every semester, new scholar groups proceed constructing on the work of these earlier than them — refining options, fixing points and increasing the platform based mostly on direct consumer suggestions from troopers.
“As expertise continues to advance, it’s vital that essential techniques like these utilized by the Military Reserve evolve as nicely,” says Shaun Gorllapati, practical check and steady enchancment lead on the Fall 2025–Spring 2026 Senior Design II crew. “Tasks like this assist bridge that hole by introducing extra environment friendly, scalable and trendy options that enhance total operations.”
Inheriting a Mission Already in Movement
Below the steering of Affiliate Lecturers Matthew Gerber and Richard Leinecker in UCF’s College of Engineering and Computer Science, Challenge Mercury has develop into one of many college’s most formidable long-term software program initiatives since its inception in 2021.
Senior Design college students work alongside Military Reserve subject material consultants led by Reserve Mercury Program Supervisor Lt. Col. Jonathan LacKamp whereas gaining expertise in large-scale software program engineering, testing and deployment administration.
This 12 months’s crew included 15 college students with experience in information science, artificial intelligence and software and web-based growth. Organized into three teams, they centered on backend growth, bug fixes and upkeep, and new characteristic growth.
At first of the semester, the crew inherited an almost five-year-old codebase from earlier college students. Via documentation opinions, handoff conferences and collaboration with prior builders, they discovered how one can preserve and increase a residing software program system already serving navy customers nationwide.
New Options Give attention to Velocity, Safety and Simplicity
For Spring 2026, 84 new customers from the sixth Battalion, 52nd Aviation Regiment had been onboarded and educated on the platform. Their suggestions immediately formed a number of new enhancements.
Among the many newest updates was a Pay Kind Limits characteristic that helps commanders monitor annual submission thresholds tied to DA 1380 compensation requests. College students additionally improved the app’s dental type course of by including required area validation, submission affirmation and higher signature dealing with to assist guarantee medical documentation is accomplished precisely for deployment readiness.
One other main improve was a redesigned notification system.
“I’m particularly happy with the notification system, which considerably improves how reservists keep knowledgeable and act throughout the software,” Gorllapati says. “Beforehand, … customers needed to depend on an exercise log to view updates. Notifications weren’t actionable, lacked clear learn and unread indicators, and didn’t information customers to the related a part of the app.”
Further enhancements at present in growth embody multi-factor authentication for stronger safety and a large-scale consumer interface redesign to modernize the platform and enhance accessibility.
The response from reservists has bolstered the mission’s affect.
“We just lately onboarded a unit that was fighting an HR administrator scarcity throughout a number of firms,” says Maj. Jeffrey Garner, Reserve Mercury onboarding and implementation lead. “After they began utilizing Reserve Mercury, the suggestions was speedy — they known as it a ‘recreation changer’ and requested to onboard their further items as quickly as potential.”
Creating Profession-Prepared Expertise Via Mission-Pushed Work
For college kids, the expertise goes far past the classroom.
“Engaged on a mission with real-world, national-level affect whereas nonetheless a scholar has been a really significant expertise,” Gorllapati says. “[It has] ready me to deal with real-world engineering challenges extra successfully and has bolstered my purpose of pursuing a profession in software program engineering, the place I can contribute to large-scale, impactful techniques.”
Senior Design crew members construct expertise in frontend and backend growth, AWS providers, deployment administration, software program testing, and launch cycles whereas collaborating immediately with navy stakeholders in an atmosphere that mirrors skilled software program engineering groups.
However for a lot of, probably the most rewarding half is realizing their work immediately helps service members.
“Realizing that the top customers are actual service members provides objective to each characteristic we construct,” Gorllapati says. “It motivates us to be taught new instruments, enhance our technical expertise, and apply finest practices to make sure the applying is dependable, environment friendly, and simple to make use of.”
That objective continues driving Reserve Mercury ahead — one replace, one deployment and one scholar at a time.
“What we’ve seen over the lifetime of the mission is the facility of collaboration between reservists as each clients and subject material consultants, innovation sponsors like DIU and the unimaginable dedication of successive scholar groups,” Reserve Mercury Program Supervisor Lt. Col. Jonathan LacKamp says. “This system is at present poised for wider adoption throughout USAR, however that wouldn’t be potential with out the robust basis constructed by our UCF partners. At Reserve Mercury, we consider that administrative effectivity is immediately associated to each operational readiness and the retention of certified troopers. UCF helps make this perception a actuality.”
