Passive Solar Design Project
In this project, we made three projects at the same time. We needed to design a solar reflector panel to get light into the North Window of the STEM solar studio. We also had to design a cold frame to be used in the garden to allow plants to grow in the winter. We worked on an extra project, a deck that we did just for fun.
Hot water heater
From our knowledge of the concepts, we made a design that would heat up water as fast as we could in a short amount of time. We created around 15,000 J of energy, and raised the temperature about 10 degrees Fahrenheit.
Site selections
The goal in this was to find 3 sites on the school campus that was good for building a solar efficient home. We rated them from 1-10 in several different sections, including noise, sun, etc.
MATERIAL TESTING LAB
In this lab, we tested a whole bunch of different types of materials, and tried to find out which ones were the best for trapping heat.
day lighting techniques
We learned about light shelves, skylights, clerestory windows, and solar tubes. We used this knowledge to build our own model out of cardboard.
SOLAR RELFECTOR AND COLD FRAME DESIGN
This was the final part of this project. We needed to design three things for this part, a solar reflector panel to get light into the North Window of the STEM solar studio, cold frame to be used in the garden to allow plants to grow in the winter. We also worked on an extra project, a deck for the solar studio that we did just for fun.
Concepts
Heat: Heat (cal J) how fast the atoms are moving in an area
Specific Heat: (cal J) amount of heat to raise the temperature of a gram of a substance by one degree.
Radiation: Transfer of heat through waves
Conduction: Transfer of heat through a solid
Convection: Transfer of heat through a fluid
Insulation: Holding heat properties
Law of Thermodynamics: If two systems are in thermal equality with a third, then they are in equality with each other
1st Law of Thermodynamics: Energy is neither created nor destroyed
2nd Law of Thermodynamics: entropy increases
3rd Law of Thermodynamics: Temperature can never reach absolute zero
Specific Heat: (cal J) amount of heat to raise the temperature of a gram of a substance by one degree.
Radiation: Transfer of heat through waves
Conduction: Transfer of heat through a solid
Convection: Transfer of heat through a fluid
Insulation: Holding heat properties
Law of Thermodynamics: If two systems are in thermal equality with a third, then they are in equality with each other
1st Law of Thermodynamics: Energy is neither created nor destroyed
2nd Law of Thermodynamics: entropy increases
3rd Law of Thermodynamics: Temperature can never reach absolute zero
Reflection
For this passive solar design project, it went pretty well, but went for an really long time. The cooperation was high at the beginning but after a while, it started to slow down because we were working with the same people for a really long time. I feel that we spent lots of time on learning the concepts and other stuff, rather not the actual project. But with the time we had, we spent a lot of time on the Coldframe and didn't spend so much time to finish the other projects. Like the North Window and the Extra project. I didn't like that we had to do so many projects at one time. I also didn't like that we only had 3 people in our group, but we couldn't have fixed that. I learned how Coldframes work and more things about the sun and heat. We could have worked on time management and spreading out the time for each project, instead of working on one and then rushing the others. Despite the lack of cooperation at the end, we pulled off a really nice coldframe and extra presentation. The north window was rushed, but was alright.