The experimenting has died down in a sense because everyone is getting ready to go on Winter Break. Currently, we are planning on doing further experiments relating to our sunlight angles. After break, we will more than likely redo the Clinometers experiments if we need better accuracy, or try another form of experiment if need be.
We have come to an agreement in class on what type of experiment to perform. In order to find the sunlight angles, we will be doing an experiment based on our 9th grade Geometry projects. We will have a viewing tube attached to protractors with sting and weights. As we look up to see the tops of the buildings where sunlight, the weight will pull the string down and show us the angle at which sunlight hits our school. Each group will have their own viewing/angle device and use it to find the sunlight angles at several different points to get an average sunlight angle in the polar directions, east and west from our school.
Now, we are in the midst of finding where the sun strikes the school at different positions. We are discussing how to set up an experiment that will allow us to find the angles that sunlight hits SLA with relative accuracy. Since there are many other buildings around the school, many taller in fact, we know the sunlight angles will be different depending on where we look, so we are also discussing a way to address this in our experiments.
We’ve done a lot since I’ve last spilled my brain leakage into the internet database to be processed around the globe by possibly millions of viewers, or maybe just one who gets bored enough to take a gander in this direction. As a class, last time I posted, we had decided to divvy ourselves into groups based on who wanted to test what. I had the pleasure of only having one other group member interested in the efficiency the solar cells produced, and was glad to have him as he kept out of my way mostly. Sure, I had him help when he was needed, or to at least make him available to receive credit, but all in all we kept our distance from each other. I’m a lone worker, and I don’t like to be disturbed, built upon the belief that other people usually get in the way.
I got bored of testing the amount of light covered in an area by the ceiling lights and comparing it to the amount of energy the solar cell. So I packed every up and stacked the equipment away back to the confines of boxes. I stumbled over to where a group was working feverishly to wire the solar cells in series. My partner soon joined with me and we gave our two cents.
The group we just joined was working on making the solar cells produce more voltage and amps, and were supposed to be looking at the effects of wiring in series, parallel, and both. We began stripping wires with scissors and pliers, and then tying the blue to the red. I broke a few with my clumsy hands, but we managed to wire them, after about the whole class period, in series. Ironically when we took data on the voltage, no one decided to actually record it, so all our data taken was lost and in vain. Our group did the same thing when we tested for wiring in parallel, and in both series and parallel, the amperage/voltage we recorded was lost and forgotten.
Afterwords, student interviews were done by some corporation whose name slips my mind. I was selected, but by the time I worked up the nerve to go through interrogation, the time was up, and they had moved out. I know one girl kept saying her interview was bad, and VanK and I kept reassuring her. Some people just can’t accept that they are able to do things well. After this passed, we turned ourselves onto a new topic: Tracking the sun. After much class discussion of how we would go about such a feat, and VanKouwenberg constantly taunting us with the notion of a “simple” way to do it, we turned ourselves to researching the topic. I didn’t really know what I was looking for, but I heard a few kids already shouting the answers, so I click-clacked on my keyboard the name of the device and found it much similar to a device I had used in geometry ninth grade year. The device was a protractor, with a hollowed out shaft along the 180º side, and a weighted string attached at the 180º side that ran down the 90º line. As you looked up, the weighted string would tell the angle at which you were looking from the 90º mark, which one could then figure out by taking the difference between 90º and the angle at which the string was located. From there we spent a period actually making them, a few getting done early and actually taking measurements of the sun at the east side of our building. The next time we met up for engineering, we had all spent five minutes adding finishing touches to our devices, and all hurried over to the west side of the building, where as a class we all took measurements pertaining to the angle of the buildings that towered over us from our roof, so that we could calculate the amount of sun we get each day.
Yousuf Khaled
10/28/08
We are trying to enter a competition in Philadelphia where we are given solar cells and have the opportunity to design something creative using them. We’ll be competing with Philadelphia’s best schools. Hopefully this will give SLA more attention and will show onlookers that this new school can compete with the best.
In the past few weeks we have been figuring out what we could power with solar panals and how we could use them. Our class split up into different groups and tried doing different things with the solar panals that we had. My group took four different soalr panals. We linked them all together and to a small fan. We were trying to see if we would have more power from having multiple solar panals. We thought that it would work, but it didn’t. We couldn’t understand why. Then in our next class, we figured out that the problem was that our wires were touching the table which was conducting electricity. In order to prevent that we had to put the wires over a plate of glass. When we tried this, it worked.
Yousuf Khaled
10/18/08
When we decided to make solar cells we didn’t approach it the traditional way. Usually when you look at solar cells you think of silicon solar cells that can be bought from thousands of producers. We looked at silicon solar cells and we also looked others alternatives such as using titanium dioxide and using copper.
The titanium dioxide uses obviously titanium dioxide and a synthetic die to absorb energy from the sun. The other alternative of using copper had copper absorb the energy from the sun and then have it directed to a terminal through salt water.
To decide which of the three we were going to use we had a debate. There were three teams each representing a group. One represented copper, one represented titanium dioxide, and one was represented silicon.
In the end we found that titanium dioxide had the ability to absorb light in the shade, but that it’s not that efficient. We found that silicon is the most efficient but that it’s also the most expensive. Also, we found that copper is the least expensive but by far the least efficient.
Freda Anderson
In engineering class we are building solar cells. The first step to making them is to decide which kind of solar cell is best for our purposes. We were asked to do some research, and find a procedure for a kind of solar cell, any kind of solar cell. When we came back to class we shared a little about each of our findings with the class. I found one about broken solar chips that you could weld together with copper mesh. Some other ones that were found were silicon and copper and titanium. After each presentation we took a vote to decide which ones would be most useful for our purposes, and which ones just weren’t realistic… So we eliminated the broken solar cells idea. As homework we were assigned to pick one of the three sides, titanium, copper, or silicon, and come up with an argument for each, because the next class we were going to have a debate. I picked copper just because I didn’t know anyone in the other two groups, and I didn’t know to much about any of them… So I just picked that one. And I did some research that night about it and, as it turns out it’s not very efficient and also it costs a lot… and also it would require a lot of maintenance like you would have to change the water. So when we came back the next class copper was the first to lose in the debates. Then the only two left were silicon and titanium. We were then assigned to pick one of the two sides, silicon and titanium, and do some research on them.
Today, our group managed to greatly improve on our experiments from last class. We managed to further compare different potential sources of energy to the miniature solar panels. This was done by hooking up an ammeter to a grapefruit, then the solar panel, then a battery. We found that the battery was the best source of electricity, but we know that the solar panel would last much longer since it can get recharged very easily by the sun and won’t need to be replaced. Overall, I think our second class with the miniature solar panel turned out well.
In Engineering class, we have started an experiment to see whether or not miniature sized solar panels could be useful and efficient to our class, and potentially the world. The group I was part of managed to compare the electricity potentially produced by the mini solar panel, versus that of a grapefruit. It turned out that the grapefruit gave off more electricity than the mini-solar panel, but this is more than likely because there was not a great multitude of light outside and the lights of the room were our main source for the panels. However, we will attempt to improve this upon our next class and try to achieve better results.
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