Maddy Slininger STEAM Senior Project
Define and Ideate
In this stage of the project we spent about 3 weeks comin up with issues that we see as a class. Then we chose the issues most important to us and articulated the problems that we wanted to help solve
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After defining our problems we spent about 2 weeks trying to come up with meaningful solutions to the chosen issues. Finally around mid-January we all had problems and solutions to work on.
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You can find my problem and solution under the Homestyle Renewable Energy tab.
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Research/Market Research
Looking at renewable energy as a whole I noticed a lack of small scale renewable energy. And with the sources that I did notice they weren't very helpful in informing people about renewable energy past what everyone already knows. While I was also doing research I found a lot of interesting projects that people are working on to collect energy, however no one really knew much about them and they weren't the easiest websites to find.
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When doing research into specific renewable energy sources themselves, and not just as a whole, I found a lot of different websites talking about what instillation would look like. One similarity I noticed was that all of the installations were not something that, one, everyone could afford, and two, didn't have the accommodations for. An example of this is typical small scale hydro energy where people need to purchase a turbine and then have a stream with at least a 2 foot drop to get it to even rotate.
Prototype 1
During prototype 1 my project started taking shape as I setup the wind turbine and the multimeter that showed home much voltage the device was creating. And after about a month of struggling with circuitry I got this setup to work.
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Prototype 1 Continued
After the wind turbine I began work on the hydro turbines. I started out with 4 small turbines, but only set up a design for 1 just for testing purposes. However after some testing it became obvious that I wasn't creating enough water pressure to create any large amount of voltage. So for the last part of this stage I was able to receive a new turbine to try.
Professional Review Night
Getting ready for the professional review night I had the wind turbine, my hydro setup (not working), and then the slideshow below. I thought the night was overall really successful as I had no problem presenting my project and I received some very helpful feedback.
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Professional Review Night Feedback
Most of the feedback that I received during this night that helped drive my project forward was that I needed more ways to present my findings so that people could see how the devices I was showing could fit into their daily lives. I also received a lot of feedback about what else I was going to do to show people how small scale renewable energy is a viable option. IÂ took this feedback and decided that I would create more visuals as to how these devices can be used by creating posters and a video.
