Advanced Alternative Energy Exercises

Let’s see how much you’ve picked up with these experiments and the reading – answer as best as you can. (No peeking at the answers until you’re done!) Just relax and see what jumps to mind when you read the question. You can also print these out and jot down your answers in your science notebook. Please login or register to read the rest of this content.  Read More →

Answers to Advanced Alternative Energy Exercises

Let’s see how you did! If you didn’t get a few of these, don’t let it stress you out – it just means you need to play with more experiments in this area. We’re all works in progress, and we have our entire lifetime to puzzle together the mysteries of the universe! Here’s printer-friendly versions of the exercises and answers for you to print out: Simply click here for printable questions and answers. Answers: Please... [Read More...]

Solar Cookies

Can you use the power of the sun without using solar cells? You bet! We’re going to focus the incoming light down into a heat-absorbing box that will actually cook your food for you. Remeber from Unit 9 how we learned about photons (packets of light)?  Sunlight at the Earth’s surface is mostly in the visible and near-infrared (IR) part of the spectrum, with a small part in the near-ultraviolet (UV). The UV light has more energy than... [Read More...]

Solar Boat

Does it really matter what angle the solar cell makes with the incoming sunlight? If so, does it matter much? When the sun moves across the sky, solar cells on a house receive different amounts of sunlight. You’re going to find out exactly how much this varies by building your own solar boat. We’re going to use solar cells and the basic ideas from Unit 10 (Electricity & Robotics) to build a solar-powered race car.  You’ll need to find... [Read More...]

Solar Car

Solar energy (power) refers to collecting this energy and storing it for another use, like driving a car. The sun blasts 174 x 1015 watts (which is 174,000,000,000,000,000 watts) of energy through radiation to the earth, but only 70% of that amount actually makes it to the surface. And since the surface of the earth is mostly water, both in ocean and cloud form, only a small fraction of the total amount makes it to land. A solar cell converts sunlight... [Read More...]

Wind Turbine

Believe it or not, most of the electricity you use comes from moving magnets around coils of wire! Wind turbines spin big coils of wire around very powerful magnets (or very powerful magnets around big coils of wire) by capturing the flow. Here’s how it works: when a propeller is placed in a moving fluid (like the water from your sink or wind from your hair dryer), the propeller turns. If you attach the propeller to a motor shaft, the motor... [Read More...]

Marshmallow Roaster

Do you like marshmallows cooked over a campfire? What if you don’t have a campfire, though? We’ll solve that problem by building our own food roaster – you can roast hot dogs, marshmallows, anything you want. And it’s battery-free, as this device is powered by the sun. NOTE: This roaster is powerful enough to start fires! Use with adult supervision and a fire extinguisher handy. If you’re roasting marshmallows, remember... [Read More...]

Stirling Engine

This project is for grades 9-12.This Stirling Engine project is a very advanced project that requires skill, patience, and troubleshooting persistence in order to work right.  Find yourself a seasoned Do-It-Yourself type of adult (someone who loves to fix things or tinker in the garage) before you start working on this project,  or you’ll go crazy with nit-picky things that will keep the engine from operating correctly.  This makes an excellent... [Read More...]

Lesson 2: Advanced Alternative Energy Video

What’s all the hype about “Alternative Energy”? Are there really better ways of making the same energy for less? Absolutely! One of the biggest challenges we have right now is how to extract the energy that’s already around us. For example, the amount of energy in a gallon of water could power all of the USA for a year, if we only knew how to harness it safely. There are many different forms of energy floating around you right... [Read More...]

Shopping List for Unit 12

This Unit is a bit different from the rest. While we usually try to keep the materials simple for you, some of these materials are not your everyday items. The projects in this unit are more intensive and expensive – you’ll want to pick which ones you want to do before buying the materials. We’ve broken the materials down in this list by project, so you’ll find overlap between the different projects.  Most projects take a... [Read More...]

Solar Energy Project

This article has all the information you need to complete a Science Fair Project, including instructional step-by-step video, documentation, required forms, experimentation tips and tricks, and how to squeeze your great idea into the scientific method. Please Login or Register to read the rest of this content.  Read More →