Weekly Updates

Week 9: 11/30/2015

        The final model is done in this week. The energy collected by solar penal will be transferred like the following diagram. The solar penal collects the solar energy, menage it, store it, then transfer and use it.

        The most time of this week is spent on rewriting the final report and preparing he PPT & presentation. The presentation are separated in 5 section, which each of the group member will present a part.

        Nowadays, the solar energy is using more widely in buildings, and it will be a tendency of using alternative energy.

Week 8: 11/23/2015

        

        During this week, the presentation is put in schedule, and we basically talk about what should we talk in the presentation. The presentation are still edited, and we are still practicing.

Week 7: 11/16/2015

        

        The model is improved in the passing week, the beam which holding the Fresnel lens can move upward and downward. 

Also the solar penal is purchased to contribute to the model, it is placed on the lower beam, and can be rotated around the dome. 

It takes 6 hours for the solar penal to store 50% of energy, and the energy can use to light the light bulb, the one is bound with the solar penal. It represents the energy the solar penal transferring. 

The Fresnel lens' efficiency will be test when the solar penal is empty. The Fresnel lens will be placed over the solar penal in sunny day, and the hour it takes to store 50% of energy will be record. The the efficiency of the Fresnel lens can be calculated.

Week 6: 11/9/2015

        
        The model is set up this week, which it uses a lampshade as the shape of the dome, and the Lego for the structure to hold the solar penal. We use the controller in the Mindstorms Lego to be the rotator. The solar penal is purchased this week, it can light a light bulb when transferring solar energy into electrical  energy.

   

Week 5: 11/2/2015

         We added a new part into our design in the weekend meeting, which is a Fresnel lens. A Fresnel lens can capture more oblique light from a light source, thus allowing the light from a lighthouse equipped with one to be visible over greater distances. We put the Fresnel lens in front of each solar panel to collect the sun light and make them focus in the solar panel. The radian of the Fresnel lens and the distance between the Fresnel lans and the solar panel will be calculated. We also produced a simple model video to show the moving process of our design.

Week 4: 10/26/2015

        During week 6’s meeting, we decided the structure that we were going to build with the 3D printer. It was a model named “DOME”, built by Bülent Özkan on September 10, 2013 and published on the website of  GRABCAD. 

        Then we talked about what the angles should the solar panels moved to follow the sun from morning to evening. We had a general theorem about it, but we still need to calculate accurately. 

        For the model ,we decided to rotate the whole part of  solar panel by a electrical controller which is usually used to control the robot. 

        We also shared a article called “Sun-trackers profitability analysis in Spain” by Miguel de Simón-Martín, Cristina Alonso-Tristán and Montserrat Díez-Mediavilla, which gave us more information about applying solar panel for buildings. (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com.ezproxy2.library.drexel.edu/doi/10.1002/pip.2347/abstract)

Week 3: 10/19/2015

         During week 5’s meeting, we exchanged our main idea with Prof. Ellis, which was building a solar energy accumulator on the outside of the building in order to save energy and protect the environment. We designed the building in a shape of hemisphere, the solar panel will be placed on 1/6 of the building surface from the top the hemisphere to the ground surface. The entire solar panel can move on a track from East to West outside the building during the day light hour, and replace when sunset. The moving time is changeable between summer and winter depend on our calculation based on sunrise and sunset time. Also, each individual solar panel will change it angle facing the sun light vertically based on the sun angle of the day. Prof. Ellis suggested us to look over “azimuth” and “heliodon”  for more idea.

        We distributed our works to each group member in this meeting, which can be separated into 5 part: 1.making the 3D Printing building 2. making animation file of the solar panel moving process 3. searching for the history about “solar building” 4. updating weekly blog 5.calculating the sun light angles and the daily sun hours.

Week 2: 10/12/2015

        At Week 4, we had our group meeting in Bossone and started the design. Here is the preliminary design we draw during our discussion.

Week 1: 10/5/2015

       During week 3, after a heated discussion,we finally decided the theme of our project which is a Solar Sunflower that can capacity simultaneously travelling around the building where it is installed to save energy and protect environment. Then we started to write our Proposal by clearly lay out our goal and requirement of the project.