To Start off our energy efficient outdoor classroom, we began by learning about atoms, different heat transfers, the laws of thermodynamics, etc. After we familiarized ourselves with all of these concepts, we built a solar water heater and a wind turbine to further learn about renewable energy and apply our concept we learned to real life things. In our last step, we were able to design an outdoor classroom planned to be built at San Marin High School in the near future!
Solar Hot Water Heater
To start off our project, we built a solar water heater. Our water heater consisted of a funnel that poured into a tube, leading the water to flow through our copper pipe, warming up above our reflective box angled at the sun's angle during that time of day according to our solar angles chart, which ended up in a bottle sitting in an insulated box that we cycled back through over and over. During the process of heating up our water, we ran into a dew human errors. First off, our water wasn't at the temperature of the surrounding air so when we started, the water was at 13 degrees Celsius and after 15 minutes went down to 12.5 degrees Celsius and then back to 13 degrees Celsius 5 minutes later. Our second human error was that we spilled some of our water when moving it back and forth between our starting and end cup. However overall we calculated that our design gained 3,599.96 joules which made our design not the most efficient, but it did gain heat nevertheless.
Client Need Survey
Since our outdoor classroom is being built on the San Marin Campus and is open for students and teachers to use, we wanted them to have a say in what it might be like. So we conducted a survey asking them what kind of style, name, location, etc. that they wanted. We incorporated the top responses with a reasonable student to teacher ratio into our design.
Site Selection
For our sight selection, we started off by listing some weighing factors that would make a spot on our campus good or bad for our classroom to be built on. Four our main factors we chose, sunlight, shade, wind blockage, convenience, area of space, ground quality, and level land. Using these factors, we went around campus and scored sites on a 1-3 scale of how good each factor was. One being horrible, two being ok, and three being pretty good.
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Materials Testing Lab
Since our class room is outdoors, we needed to make sure our materials could with stand the elements like water and heat. First off we tested materials for how hot they got like wood, metal, painted wood etc. and saw how quickly they heated up and slowed down. We used this to help us with things like benches, where you don't want to use a material for the benches that gets really hot where people are seating. Also we tested our materials for water to see how resistant they were, and if they would hold the water for a long time or quickly disperse of it.
Outdoor Classroom
Here is a slide show with our blue prints, 3D model, pictures, and much more! You can also click the link below for a whole list of our materials. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Wk9Mi8u66x9pQBbSVnr-LFwzHZpMe_QDbhp_j0GVHuo/edit#gid=0
Wind Turbine Lab
In this lab, we constructed different types of VAWT and HAWTs to see what types of blades produced the greatest voltage. HAWT stands for horizontal axis wind turbine and VAWT stands for vertical axis wind turbines. We constructed many types of different blades, and came to the conclusion that blades with air pockets closer to the middle produced the most output voltage. This is because when air pockets are closer the middle, they have a shorter distance to travel around in one rotation thus, allowing more rotations per second and faster speeds.
Justification Document
In this document, we justify why we want to use less electricity and more renewable energy. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1bFY3_1XyQnYaHe64XkJ7PyTiK26ZoMtmcsY96jM8fSQ/edit
Concepts:
AtomsAtoms : are the building block and basic structure of all matter
Atoms consist of... 1. protons - positive charge and have mass (# of protons = the atomic number) 2. neutrons - no charge and have mass also (found in nucleus with protons) 3. electrons - negative charge and have no mass (out of nucleus in electron shells) The number of neutrons + protons = atomic mass Isotope : atom with unusual number of neutrons Ion : atom with unusual number of electrons Molecule : two or more atoms bonded together Compound : molecule made of different elements States of matter : 1. Solid - molecules are bonded firmly & held densely 2. Liquid - molecules are bonded to one another but can their bonds to other molecules & still held densely 3. Gas - molecules are rarely bonded together and are 1/1000 as dense |
Heat
Specific Heat Capacity : A constant for each material indicating how slow it heats up/cools downs ( higher heat capacity holds more heat & heats up slowly
Heat is transferred in three different ways...
1. Conduction - heat transfers through a solid
2. Convection - transfer of heat through fluid ( liquid or gas )
3. Radiation - transfer of heat through waves, rays, or particles ( no medium required )
Insulators are bad at transferring heat while conductors are very good at transferring heat.
Heat is transferred in three different ways...
1. Conduction - heat transfers through a solid
2. Convection - transfer of heat through fluid ( liquid or gas )
3. Radiation - transfer of heat through waves, rays, or particles ( no medium required )
Insulators are bad at transferring heat while conductors are very good at transferring heat.
Solar Angles
Throughout the year, the sun's angle of light hitting Earth differ. This is because of the Earth's tilt which is at a 23.5 degree angle. As earth orbits the sun, the Earth stays at the 23.5 degree position and at different times throughout the year will be tilted closer towards the sun allowing more direct rays of light. While during different times of the year, the earth will be tilted farther away from the sun, and the sun's rays will be less direct and more spread out. This is what contributes to the different seasons, and the fluctuating angles of the sun throughout the year.
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Laws of Thermodynamics
There are four laws for thermodynamics, the 0th, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Law
0th - `if two systems are in thermal equilibrium with out a third system, they are in equilibrium together
1st - energy is neither created nor destroyed, but transferred from one to another
2nd - disorder increases over time, everything becomes the same temperature
3rd - temperature can never get to absolute zero, heat always exists
0th - `if two systems are in thermal equilibrium with out a third system, they are in equilibrium together
1st - energy is neither created nor destroyed, but transferred from one to another
2nd - disorder increases over time, everything becomes the same temperature
3rd - temperature can never get to absolute zero, heat always exists
Reflection
This project was a very lengthy project with its ups and downs. Overall I felt my group worked very well together and we were able to accomplish our task. However because this project was so lengthy, I felt my group was getting off track a lot of the time. In addition to getting off track, I feel the time we wasted not working on our project could have been valuable time to use to research more, and start on things early until waiting until the end to do everything. I think one of our biggest issues was our timing. We weren't very good with our timing, and ended up having to do a lot of work at the end. I think if we had started on things earlier, we could have been more prepared and put together. However on another note, I feel I really stepped up in my leadership role this time. Whenever some one was off task I would tell them to get back on task and ask them to do something that needed to be done. I also took the role of dividing out work between our team members. Furthermore I learned that I can't sit at a computer researching the same thing for twenty minutes while getting no result. This happened to me a few times and I would get so frustrated that I would just give up and move onto something else. I definitely need to work on being more patient and taking a deep breathe before I give up. Besides the few downs, I think this project was a fun and exciting project being able to design an outdoor classroom. I also got to learn a lot about energy , the sun ,waves, etc. and it was really nice to be able to apply the concepts we learned to stuff we were doing.