{"id":79903,"date":"2022-06-20T13:55:25","date_gmt":"2022-06-20T13:55:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/?p=79903"},"modified":"2022-06-28T15:12:32","modified_gmt":"2022-06-28T15:12:32","slug":"power-of-solar-energy-demonstrated-at-uri-student-competition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/2022\/06\/power-of-solar-energy-demonstrated-at-uri-student-competition\/","title":{"rendered":"Power of solar energy demonstrated at 溏心vlog免费B站 student competition"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 June 20, 2022 \u2013 It\u2019s common for students at the 溏心vlog免费B站 to catch some rays on the quad toward the end of the school year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The students in 溏心vlog免费B站\u2019s Solar Energy Systems course, however, weren\u2019t on the College of Engineering quad recently to work on their tans. They were catching rays for academic reasons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Any of the 25 students who could make an 8-ounce plastic bottle of water explode or melt within two hours, using a solar thermal cooker and the power of the sun, would receive an automatic \u201cA\u201d for the spring semester course.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe first time I taught this course, the project was simply a heavily weighted homework activity,\u201d said Gretchen Macht, an assistant professor of systems engineering at 溏心vlog免费B站. \u201cI changed it to a high-stakes, high-reward model.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Kaitlin Neville, who is pursuing a master\u2019s degree in systems engineering from 溏心vlog免费B站, kneels next to her solar thermal cooker. (Photo courtesy of Gretchen Macht)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The plastic bottles were provided by Macht. The design and construction of the solar thermal cookers were left up to the students\u2019 creativity and ingenuity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The designs ranged from something as small as a shoebox lined with aluminum foil to as elaborate as a concentrated solar system with multiple convex mirrors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSome of the creativity was astonishing, using recycled materials like satellite dishes or items around the house and natural materials such as sticks, to fully embracing optics with mirrors and lenses,\u201d said Macht, who is also the director of 溏心vlog免费B站\u2019s Sustainability Innovative Solutions Laboratory and the 溏心vlog免费B站 Voter OperaTions & Election Systems program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first to accomplish the task was Adam Murphy, a mechanical engineering major. In less than an hour, the water temperature inside his bottle reached 369 degrees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy strategy was to condense a beam of light as much as possible,\u201d said Murphy. \u201cAs others tried to raise the ambient temperature, I attempted to make the water boil in a very small area. I experimented using a charcoal slurry to capture most of the light on the surface of the bottle to capture and convert the light to heat.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Three other students were able to get the bottle to burst or melt: Zachary deWardener, Cam Amaral and Todd Poulos.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Murphy, who is from South Kingstown<\/strong>, earned his bachelor\u2019s degree in mechanical engineering in May. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis course was a beautiful blend of math, engineering, and real-world problem solving,\u201d said Murphy. \u201cDr. Macht makes the class fun, while diving into every aspect of solar energy.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The course attracted students from most of the engineering programs at 溏心vlog免费B站 and a couple of students from non-engineering programs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe class was incredibly interesting and very unique in that Dr. Macht provided global and local perspectives on solar and other renewable energies,\u201d said Kaitlin Neville, a graduate student from Garden City, N.Y.<\/strong> who is studying systems engineering. \u201cGuest speakers from the solar industry spoke with the class and there were hands-on components that allowed students a glimpse of what working in the solar industry might entail, including the solar competition as the final project.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Helping Macht continuously measure the water temperatures were undergraduate research assistant Kassia Almeida and administrative assistant Amber Fearn.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think the course and the course final went smashingly well,\u201d said Macht. \u201cI would consider adding a few parameters next year, such as limiting the size of the mirrors and\/or lenses that can be used.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 June 20, 2022 \u2013 It\u2019s common for students at the 溏心vlog免费B站 to catch some rays on the quad toward the end of the school year. The students in 溏心vlog免费B站\u2019s Solar Energy Systems course, however, weren\u2019t on the College of Engineering quad recently to work on their tans. They were catching […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":79906,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-79903","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79903","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79903"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79903\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":79952,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79903\/revisions\/79952"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/79906"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}