Evidence of Work:
the power novato unit was split over a very large amount of time, so we learned a very large amount of content. the content that we learned was all about electricity. we covered wind turbines, electrical FIELDS, electromagnets and motors. finally, we worked with our groups to DESIGN a MICROGRID. our microgrid would be used to power either just novato or just san marin high school. we chose to make our grid power all of novato, with no outside help.
Our Design:
in order to power all of novato, there needs to be a lot of electricity present. we found that Novato uses approximately 140,000,000 kilowatts-hours per year of electricity. in order to make up that amount of electricity, we needed multiple energy sources. we decided to use solar panels, wind turbines and biomass. to store the energy, we are going to use hydrogen batteries.
to create enough electricity using solar panels, we will place a 7KW solar system on each house in novato. the installation of the panels will be free for the citizens, if a household chooses not to install, they do not have to. The total amount of electricity created by the solar panel is 120,000,000 kilowatt-hours/year. the next power source that we would use would be wind power. we would put turbines in the places circled in the map, which is in the presentation to the right. the wind turbines would create 4,000,000 kilowatt hours/year. we would also use biomass energy. we would have multiple generators, also shown in the map to the right. the biomass energy would add up to 20,000,000 kilowatt hours/year. in total, we would not only create enough energy to power novato, but we would create extra. we would use that energy to sell back into the system, eventually paying off the total cost. more details on our plan are shown in the presentation to the right. |
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Content:
most of the content that we learned for this was done in the form of labs.
Wind Turbine Design:
wind turbines are extremely important to learn about because they are 100% renewable and much cleaner than gas or most other energy sources. our task was to design the blades for a wind turbine that would be the most effective. we went through a lot of trial and error to find the right blades. our final product is shown to the right.
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Electrical Fields:
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One of the topics we talked about in this unit was electrical fields, because it was an underlying subject for everything else. We did multiple experiments with this topic, such as the sticky tape lab and electric field hockey.
for static electricity, we did a lab called the sticky tape lab. this helped us to learn about repulsion and attraction. with certain electric fields, the pieces of tape would attract each other, while in others, they would repel. there was also a COMPUTER site with an "electric FIELD hockey" game. in the game, we played with the electric fields to direct a charge. we also learned about coulomb's law, which is f=q1+q2/d^2. more information is in the document to the left. |
Electromagnet Lab:
In this experiment, my group and I created and designed our own procedure to learn more about how an electrical current transfers to a magnetic filed. We learned about electromagnets and how they work. Electromagnets are made from a piece of metal that is surrounded by electrified copper coils. The interesting thing about electromagnets is how they can be turned on and off, just by disconnecting the battery/power source. Our group's objective was to see How the number of copper wire coils influence the strength of the magnetic field made by an electromagnet. to do this, we wrapped different numbers of coils, and saw how many staples could be picked up. more on this is shown to the right.
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Dissect A Motor:
to learn more about motors, we got to dissect them. we learned that the copper coils within the motor causes an electromagnet effect, causing the motor to spin. it was very interesting to not only learn about this, but to also see it in person. to the left is an example of one of the motors that we dissected. we got to dissect two different motors in two different sizes. one was a motor for a car, and the other was a very small simple motor, used in things such as a small fan.
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Reflection:
this was a very spread out unit, but i enjoyed learning the concepts that we did. there were many parts of this project that i really liked, and some that i felt weren't really for me.
one of my favorite parts in this unit was visiting an actual electric microgrid. we got to go on a field trip to an actual working power grid, and it was on a farm that fully relied on its own power. i really liked this because we go to see what we were working towards in real life, and it really helped me to understand the concept on a microgrid.
in this project, i felt that i did really well in leadership, but the work ethic wasn't great for my group at times. i found many times to take leadership and organize our activities. i also helped to make sure that everyone had an equal input, and shared an equal amount in the presentation. leadership is usually a quality that i need to work on, so i am proud of myself for obtaining that in this unit.
one thing that i thought our group could've worked on was collaboration. while at times we worked extremely well together, there were also times where we could have done better. i think that we were too focused on equal contribution, and never really worked together. we were always working on our own things. if our group had collaborated more, i feel that this project would have gone flawlessly.
overall, i really enjoyed this project and learned a lot from it. i learned how to EXcEL in leadership, and i also learned to improve my collaboration skills. i think that this was a successful unit.
one of my favorite parts in this unit was visiting an actual electric microgrid. we got to go on a field trip to an actual working power grid, and it was on a farm that fully relied on its own power. i really liked this because we go to see what we were working towards in real life, and it really helped me to understand the concept on a microgrid.
in this project, i felt that i did really well in leadership, but the work ethic wasn't great for my group at times. i found many times to take leadership and organize our activities. i also helped to make sure that everyone had an equal input, and shared an equal amount in the presentation. leadership is usually a quality that i need to work on, so i am proud of myself for obtaining that in this unit.
one thing that i thought our group could've worked on was collaboration. while at times we worked extremely well together, there were also times where we could have done better. i think that we were too focused on equal contribution, and never really worked together. we were always working on our own things. if our group had collaborated more, i feel that this project would have gone flawlessly.
overall, i really enjoyed this project and learned a lot from it. i learned how to EXcEL in leadership, and i also learned to improve my collaboration skills. i think that this was a successful unit.