Jeez...Elementary school math is hard!

Before leaving you guys for a while, I did some little calculations for the concentrator...

Width of one panel = 38 cm (= 3*12cm (CDs) + 2cm (just for fun))
Length of a row = 200 cm (= 5*38cm (panels) + 2 * 5cm (attachments))
The needed elevation of the furthest panel (so that we know the length of the handles) = 32 cm


At first I was being a dumbass and couldn't figure out how to solve x. I finally got it then. So if the needed elevation is 32 cm, I think 40 cm (or maybe a little less) would be a good length for the handles, since it has to go through the wood and there needs to be some space for attaching. They sell the material in 2 m long bits, so alltogether we will need 5 of those, according to these calculations.

For attaching the rows, this is what I thought of:


We'd use bolts since you need to be able to put the thing in pieces and put it together again. Do you think this attachment could work? I thought we could have the center rows and the furthest rows fixed like this (or some other way), and the two rows in the middle would be the ones you can incline if you want to reduce the efficiency of the concentrator. We still need a solution for how to rotate the rows, any thoughts on that? What's the structure of the base?

On another note, I discussed with Marko and Pamela yesterday, and it seems that the "report" is not going to be a big deal. It's 1-2 pages, and if I understood correctly it would only be a sort of an introduction to this thing we're doing. Basically something that we can present to someone, who's never heard of this project before. Why we're doing it, what's the goal of all this, why we chose to do it like we did etc. Better information about this should be sent by Pamela soonish. But so no 40 page reports, just the manual and this info thingy. Great, innit?

working at Design Factory on 29.3

Despite the litlle the small relapse on sunday, the team met on monday noon. Due to short notice Majid was not able to change his schedule, but the rest of the team was present. The meetin lasted for 4 hours. The topic of the meeting was further designing the solar concentrator. To be exact, finding a simple solution on adjusting a single panel. As a result we managed to build a simple but functioning adjustment that is made out of common components. It was a lot of fun to use the machines :) We also were discussing about the cd attachment and adjustment, but we still are not sure what is the final solution on that. But we went to the machine room to learn about the possibilities of the modern machines. It seems that these few specific functions are available in the design factory.

We desided to meet on thursday at 5 pm. Due to the eastern holidays it is not certain if the design factory empty so that someone would open the door for us... If it´s closed we can have a meeting wihout the possibilities to build, and for example calculate the need of the materials, so that we could finally buy the materials. etc...

Design Factory

Hmm, looks like no one could manage to go in the design factory today?

We hit the shops!

Hi Team,

Mina, Madjid and myself hit the shops in the city today to buy stuffs needed for our project! We bought some materials to initiate our work. We even got to the design factory and experiment our design on a single panel. Everything seems to be going fine. We plan to launch our official design work on Sunday if the design factory is open on that day. I will check that and call you guys if it is open. I am afraid Irena would hit the roof when she learns we didn't buy Pine :) Let’s be ready for Sunday. Let the good ideas roll.

On our Final report

Hey guys, I was referring some documents on how we could prepare our final report. I found some points which, I think, are worth including in our final piece. I organized the whole idea as shown below. Please Read and suggest.
Our Final report would include the following sections:

-Title and full author and team info on the first page
-Abstract (short summary of the Project)
-Introduction (motivates the project)
-Approach and methods
-Results from the project tests (how well it worked)
-Strengths and weaknesses (the good and bad parts, and why)
-Summary
-References
-Appendix

It would also be a good practice if we would be able to remember the following points while writing our final report:

- Use graphics (i.e., diagrams, graphs, tables) to illustrate our approach, but also explain it clearly in words.

- When we describe our approach, we should relate it to the key principles and ideas we learned in class. Feel free to add any other relevant references you have read which helped us with the project.

- Our references to other books/readings should be done as professionally as those in the textbook.

- Explain any original ideas and additions that are a part of our design. For failed versions of the design we would describe them briefly and explain why we eliminated them.

- We should reference the manual for some information.

- Write the report for an informed lay audience; that means we need to provide enough detail so our project could be replicated by the reader.We should explain and justify all of the important design choices.

Solar Concentrator Common applications

Lets list some very common uses for solar concentrator for remote community.

• Potato chips / Frying / Cooking:

This may be common use in any household living that consumes energy.

• Solar Bakery:

Baking consumes a lot more energy but solar bakery would be sustainable and environmental friendly.

• Desalination and getting drinking water from sea water:

• Concentration purposes and Juice Extraction

• Making of Jams and drying in food processing

• HEATING HOME

Reflect solar light and heat into a window in house which does not get sunlight usually. This may heat the home naturally in winter as well. Natural light is more efficient and it reduces headache and eye fatigue caused by the fluorescent light. It may also help in health care reducing "Seasonal Affective Disorder".

• Swimming pool heating

We may build a community center swimming pool and it may be heated with solar concentrator.

• Drying paint or wood

• Electricity production

Thermal engines convert heat to mechanical power which may be used to run generator that can produce electricity efficiently.

• Growing vegetables in winter or shady areas

• Melting ice dams on roofs

• Drying wood for fire

Short discussion Monday 22 March, 2010

Well, that was just short discussion today when four of us were available in the class for today's lecture. We decided to buy the material on Thursday and meet at 1600 hrs in school for that. I think two more from the group are coming with me and I will provide the transport.
Another thing that came under discussion was that we might need to work one or two days full time in the lab to make our concentrator. Someone also suggested the Sunday for full time. So may be on thursday, we may be able to decide the day for full day working in the lab.
What do you guys say, can you make it some day? What about after Easter, weekend, any commitments?

Solar Concentrator Design

Concentrator Grid Dimensions: Width = 70 inches, Length = 84 inches; Each Panel, not shown here, is 14 inches x 14 inches (square)

Meeting in the design factory

We held our meeting in the design factory of Aalto University on 16.03.2010. Both of our mentors, Peter and Eva, and all the team members except Madjid have participated in the meeting. The main agenda of the gathering focuses on how the physical structure of our solar concentrator and its application look like. We mainly discuss the following three points in detail some:

1. Main frame: after a heated discussion, we decided on what features should our main frame has and made from. Even if we singled out certain materials to use to build our main frame we still don't rule out any other possible alternatives.

2. Panels: we decided to build 25 panels that rest on the main frame. We discussed on the adjusting mechanisms of the panels to maintain the system efficiency. We also decided on the potential material that we could use to construct the panels but again we don't rule out possible alternatives.

3. Application: We discussed on the design and construction of the application. This task was originally assigned to Madjid. Because of his apparent disappearance, the team decided to divide the task between Edward and Tewodros.We decided that the on-paper design should be completed by 19.03.2010 so that we could order materials needed for constructing the application.

Concerning the solar concentrator, we decided to start by building the grid first.

Reflection on the workshops

The experience of simulating the real life workshop in the class rooms was a great challenge and at the same times an opportunity to master the basic essence of planning and executing a real life workshop in the future. The main challenge stems from the fact that the participators are not real beneficiaries who have economic, financial or political interest on the workshop and hope to gain something out of it. This makes it very difficult to attract the attention of the participants of a simulated class room workshop as most of them have little or no idea and interest on the subject matter of the workshop.

Another challenge that I witnessed of a class room workshop is the struggle to fit all the contents of the planned workshop in a really short period of time. Sometimes we even don't get the necessary time to collect our breath before we jump form one task to another in order to manage our meager time properly. I hope we would have a much longer time than this in when we plan a real life workshop.

But I think we managed to come out of both of the above challenges with victory as we tried to plan our workshop in a sense that it would attract any neutral participant and accommodate all its components in the given period of time.
Finally, I would like to say that I feel I am privileged to experience that moment, face the challenges and share the fun with my team mates and the whole class and I hope the whole session in the consecutive two weeks gave a big lesson on how we plan our future workshops in the real world.

Adjusting a panel

Yesterday me and Irena went to the Design Factory to try to figure out the adjustment of a single panel. Basically we found some cardboard-like material, drilled some holes to it, stuck nine CDs on it and tried to lift their edges so that they would reflect to a single point.

Reflection before adjusting

Adjusting the CDs to reflect to a focal point at around two metres of the panel was surprisingly easy and didn't require great accuracy. Basically we "measured" the right angles of one side CD and one corner CD by sticking a cardboard cylinder through the holes and twisting and turning it until the angle seemed right. This way we would figure out the measurements of the wedges that go under the CDs. At this point, though, we were just playing around with play dough, so we just put four "equally sized" (measured by eye) pieces of the dough under the edges of the corner CDs and and four thinner pieces under the edges of the side CDs, and voilà:

Reflection after adjusting

Perspective of the focal point

We also noticed that by curving a CD just a tiny bit (basically just giving it a little bit of pressure), you could increase the intensity of its reflection at a single point significantly. Unfortunately it can't be seen in the photo that well, unless you try hard to see it:

Reflection when curving two of the CDs

Another thing we noticed was that the adjustments worked quite well with angles and distances that were close to the originals. We were in a small space, so we didn't really test big differences in distances. However, the more the angle changed, the worse was the result:

Reflection of a light that met the panel in a bigger angle

We figured the next step could be doing this with better materials and accuracy and not just play dough, tape and rough measurements, so we might be going back later this week (possibly Friday) to do that. Feel free to join if you're available!

Amusement in the spirit of Solar concentrators

See even Lady Gaga is a fan of Solar reflectors! Our project is Super Trendy! Lady Gaga is a trend setter, so it is just a matter of time that everybody is wearing portable solar reflectors!

I just wanted to wish you all a relaxing weekend and a stressless examweek!

Two steps forward and...back to square one?

Today we had a short discussion about the design of the solar concentrator before we went to show the "ready" idea to William and Eric. Boy, was I wrong about it being ready. We showed them a slightly simplified version of the design that the group had talked about yesterday, and we discussed further some technical details and other stuff with William and Eric.

One thing that they both seemed to agree on, was that since the design had so many moving bits and parts (e.g. the amount of joints we had), it would be both quite expensive and - even if we manage to replace the expensive stuff with some other solutions - pretty complex to adjust. Instead they both suggested a model where we would use one big panel that would be curved to form a parabolic shape, then covering it with a reflecting material. This way the adjusting wouldn't require that much work. They had some simple sounding solutions for doing this, and they really seemed to think this was something we should concider. So, back to designing I guess..?

Peter, I remember you saying that one big panel wouldn't work. Now I'm trying to remember why. Something about wind at least, but surely that problem could be solved somehow. Were there some other reasons as well?

On another note, I'm facing a huge existential crisis. The more I search on solar concentrators the more I realize that everything has already been done. What new are we exactly bringing to the table? Even the CD idea has already been used (http://solarcooking.wikia.com/wiki/Old_CD_cooker). Oh the frustration!

The day plastic became - an opportunity!