Latino College Preparatory Academy Extreme Science - Blogs
Team Video
2009-03-05 10:39:15www.youtube.com/watch?v=neoURNTwB0Y We posted this video on youtube to get more exposure.
We put the solar panels on the car today
2009-02-24 13:04:43We have been making good progress. We put the solar panels on the electric car today. Tomorrow we hope to complete the wiring and see how it works. We tested the mirror and solar panel arrangement that we are building for the roof of the garage so that we can "top off" the charge on the car batteries while it is parked for the evening. We got a five fold increase in amperage from the solar panel when we focused all four mirrors on the panel. That shows that our basic idea works. We are dealing now with how best to move the mirrors through the day and how best to move the whole array as the sun's arc through the sky changes with the seasons. We tested the mirrors to see whether they would all need to move at the same angle to keep the light focused on the solar panel. They do not move at the same angle. So throughout the day, each of the four mirrors will need to change to different angles to keep the sun focused on the panel. We have thought of sprockets and individual servo motors as one way to make the mirrors move as they should. But tomorrow we are going to try something that seems simpler. We are going to run string around the shaft on which each mirror revolves and then turn the mirrors like old radios used to tune in to different stations. A string attached to the tuning knob would move the tuner. We think that if we start the mirrors at the right angles at sunrise, then their movement should be constant relative to each other even if they are not at the same angle. We'll see if it works.