alThis is a page for the PHYS 310 Spring 2017 Physics of EnergyTo see our present research projects, please see our summer research page, and follow the links that you may find interesting.
| Project_Title | Community | Technology | Team_Members |
| Solar Electric Cooking | Uganda, Aid Africa | Please see our recent publication and research page developing a home cooking facility and introducing it in Uganda. Now, a school in Uganda is interested in one for 500 kids and a group started looking into it at: Uganda school solar cooking. What would this system look like? Cost? Thermal storage? Hybridization with fires? Can you repeat the calculations? There are presently 3 ME students working on this for senior project. You have a collaborating group in the Appropriate Technology Class, that can assist you in demographic information and/or building. Overview of cooking in Africa by 2020 | Brad Shaw Kyle Lemmerman Edward Liu Adam Patrella |
| Solar Ice | Ghana | Using PV electricity during the day, can we make ice, and keep it cold at night? – we can. We worked on this last summer (see research page) and presently have five students doing senior projects using either DC compressors or Peltier heat pumps. Can you do the heat flow calculations? Costs? In particular, there is a problem in conducting heat away from the heat pump. Do you think we can just conduct it away with a piece of aluminum in a pond, or will we need to pumped fluid? There’s a new family of Peltier heat pumps that are very effective, so our technical research will likely be compressor free. |
Alex Henrikson Jeralyn Gibbs Evan Drake Edward Donohue |
| Cal Poly SEF ventilation link | Cal Poly and other place | The greenhouse at Cal Poly’s Student Experimental Farm the Cal Poly’s Aquapononics Club needs to ventilate in the summer. There are plenty of hardware and people to help install it, but you need to design the system and do all the energy, financial, and greenhouse gas emission calculations. Contact for Aquaponics: Jtweedy@calpoly.edu, Jase Tweedy | Matt Walker Chris Lambert chlamber@calpoly.edu Dean Lockman dlockman@calpoly.edu Ian Nielsen inielsen@calpoly.edu |
| Electricity for Navajo_Nation | Navajo Nation Arizona, New Mexico, Utah | There are about 180,000 people living in the Navajo Nation many without running water and electricity Past work is (Winter 2017) PSC-320: Electricity for the Navajo Nation, and (Fall 2016) PSC-391: Pumping Water With DigDeep. Can we design an electrical system? You have a collaborating group in the Appropriate Technology Class, that can assist you in demographic information and/or building. | Diana Swanson Trung Nguyen Daniel Dich-Dang |
| Solar Powered Drip System Link |
Africa: Ghana? | Solar water pumping is a big deal. In a past class, students worked on a solar pumped drip irrigation system. Can you continue that work and build this thing? You have a collaborating group in the Appropriate Technology Class, that can assist you in demographic information and/or building. | TJ Tamura tamuratj@gmail.com Stuart Slavin: sjslavin@calpoly.edu Joe Long jtlong66@gmail.com William Xiong wixiong@calpoly.edu Ian Stone |
| Direct Charging a BEV | San Luis Obispo City Council | We’ve worked on the idea of charging a BEV directly from a PV panel. Investigate the technology and calculate energy, costs, cost savings, and environmental impacts of your technology. Full disclosure: I have 4 solar panels, ~ 1750 W on my roof. I’m considering connecting the panels directly to a rechargeable car, such as a Leaf. I have two publications here that may be helpful: Cost, Energy Density. And another unpublished paper on environmental impact. The community component of this will to collaborate with the city of San Luis Obispo in electrifying the city’s transportation sector: mail, garbage, maintenance vehicles, busses, etc. Please check out Berkeley’s Transportation Sustainability Research Center In 2007, Pete Schwartz crunched the numbers to guide the blue print for Santa Barbara’s Community Environmental Council producing this report. There is some information in it related to electrification of the transportation sector that may be helpful. Please have one spokesperson from your group contact Marcus Carloni from SLO City. He provided us with the city’s work plan, which begins on packet page 381 of the council meeting minutes from April 18. | Sarah Stephens sbstephe@calpoly.edu Nate DeBruno ndebruno@calpoly.edu Daniel Baron dbaron@calpoly.edu Roger Dorris rdorris@calpoly.edu |
| Strategic Budget Calculations Link |
San Luis Obispo City Council | The city counsel intends to be net zero energy use by a date TBA. The are organizing the effort to begin in July, 2017, and have great need for help in doing calculations. This could lead to an internship with the city. In 2007, Pete Schwartz crunched the numbers to guide the blue print for Santa Barbara’s Community Environmental Council producing this report using this spreadsheet. Likely, your efforts may be to produce a similar report for San Luis Obispo. Please have one spokesperson from your group contact Marcus Carloni from SLO City. He provided us with the city’s work plan, which begins on packet page 381 of the council meeting minutes from April 18. | Austin Kurth Adam Berg Carlton Bjork Nick Stair |
| Improved Building Efficiency | San Luis Obispo City Council | The city counsel intends to be net zero energy use by a date TBA. The are organizing the effort to begin in July, 2017, and have great need for help in doing calculations related to the fact that our buildings are energy hogs. How can we get people to retrofit? This could lead to an internship with the city. Please have one spokesperson from your group contact Marcus Carloni from SLO City. He provided us with the city’s work plan, which begins on packet page 381 of the council meeting minutes from April 18. | Josh Brinkmann Zach Shockley Alfredo Medina Spencer Dietz |
| More Projects? | You can pick a project of your own | ||
| Aquaponics on the Cheap | Sahel? or place you choose. | Aquaponics is being heralded by practitioners as the perfect way to grow food in developing countries. However, I think most embodiments suffer from two disadvantages: the extensive hardware makes the systems both expensive, and prone to disaster. Can you design and build a system that is simple, cheap, and robust? This project has been done by past classes, and you can learn from our aquaponics club. You will find collaborators in the appropriate technology class. | |
| Water for Navajo Nation | Navajo_Nation Arizona, New Mexico, Utah | There are about 180,000 people living in the Navajo Nation many without running water and electricity Past work is (Winter 2017) PSC-320: Electricity for the Navajo Nation, and (Fall 2016) PSC-391: Pumping Water With DigDeep. Can we design a pumping system? You have a collaborating group in the Appropriate Technology Class, that can assist you in demographic information and/or building. |