Statement: As a team we attempted to create a power box that was solar powered and was easily portable. Figuring out the way solar powered devices operate and the structure of different devices was a problem we encountered while creating our power box. One of our team members was able to construct the way our power box would operate with us having a good understanding of the way the sun would provide energy for our power box. Things like a solar power box have been created and seem to be such simple yet efficient and effective devices but the amount of work that they require is something hard to understand. Doing this project as team we realized the difficulties you may encounter when trying to create something that is solar powered.
Efforts for Technical Advisor: Our team had emailed 10 different possible technical advisors and received no responses. The websites I got data from along with my email addresses includes these along with the addresses: eSolar: press@esolar.com; Ausra: Kpotter@ausra.com; Stirling Energy Systems; SolarReserve: info@solarreserve.com; Solel: support.energy@siemens.com;BrightSource: info@brightsourceenergy.com; SkyFuel: info@skyfuel.com; SolarMillenium: info@solarmillenium.de; Solarite: fit@solarite.ca; Wizard Power: solarsolution@wizardpower.com.au.
Example of the email we sent the possible advisors: Dear Possible Technical Advisor/ Mentor, while finishing my last year in high school in Physics class we have come across an opportunity to become inventors. During this project I and a group of three other students have chose to create/invent something using solar thermal energy. From the research I have done, having you technical advisor/ mentor would help immensely. Understanding the way solar thermal energy works is important and to conduct something using this you would have to have great understanding. Being this is your profession and what you do if it could be possible that you mentored us throughout our project by answering questions we struggle to find, and using your wider range of thought on the subject, it would be an enormous help. Hopefully we are able to fulfill the requirements that would be needed to come up with our invention, and also are able to function with the information we know. Please get back to me and let me know if your help could be possible. Thank you, 12th grade Physics student.
100 word paragraph on teaming and communication: During the process of figuring out how to create out Solar Power Box we encountered some problems and figured out what procedures we had to get used to; for a successful operating team. Once given tasks we would count on each other and ourselves to complete what we were given and then days following provide each other with the work done. Unfortunately this didn’t work the way we had wanted it to. We didn’t complete what we had said we would and counted on the other team member to help get what we didn’t done. It is important to make a strict timeline and follow what and when you expect to complete your work. We realized communicating through cell phones and computers wasn’t very successful because when we were together working we were able to get more done by motivating each other hoping we would get good grades and also keeping things enthusiastic about our creation. These were difficulties that could have helped us to produce a better project giving us more time to create out website and our Solar Power Box.
100 word paragraph on team research and innovation: While researching on how to create our Power Box we realized how hard the actual creation process was. We had done research prior to creating our Power Box, which was helpful to understanding how devices like this worked, but more research was necessary. We weren’t aware of all the possible difficulties we would encounter during our design process. Not only did we need more prior research on the design portion, but also the work portion such as understanding our tasks and completing them with complete understanding. We also realized how hard of work this must truly be in the real world when creating and designing thing like this. It takes a lot of mathematically understanding and also understanding of our world and the way it works.
Three Lessons your team learned: Importance of Communication, Importance of planning ahead and having information prior to the work process, and the difficulties involved in Energy efficient devices.
10-2230Energy: Renewable Energy: Portable Power Box
Araxie, Alec, Artak, Darren