Solar Energy Presentation?

Question

I am doing a solar energy presentation and i want to add some audience participation with it. does any one have any ideas: like demonstrations or questions or whatever...just as long the audience are involved

Answer 1

There are some general things that I do to involve the audience when I give technical presentations.  Or things that I have seen other people do.

One thing I do is hand stuff around.  Can you get your hands on a solar module?  Or something more interesting than a solar-power calculator?  I do biomass energy presentations, and I hand around wood flour and chipped wood and other pieces and parts of biomass systems.  You can't hand around the sun, but anything physical that you can pass around is good.

I've seen people play a game with the audience by putting mistakes or symbols in their presentation.  Everytime the audience sees a "mistake" or perhaps in your case, anytime they see a sun symbol, the first one to call out "SUN!" gets some little prize.  A fun-sized (as opposed to sun-sized?) candy bar, for example.

I can also imagine demonstrating the angle of incidence on a solar panel by having the audience face forward, and then moving a light around the audience.  Or a solar concentrator by giving people mirrors and having them all point at a single spot.

It's great that you want to keep the presentation interesting.  

Good luck!

Answer 2

Study! Solar is just one of our answers. We have to have many-answers. That is why I founded CoolingEarth.org. Even that is only a start of what humans can do. But to be able to save our grand children, we must put a surcharge on pollution.

Today here is what we know:  many of mankind’s advancements cause earth surface to warm, destroy the ozone layer, kill off endanger species, heat cities, and in some way cause more destruction.  Blacktop (roads and parking lots), buildings, air pollution (causes lung and other diseases), deforestation, duststorms (which increase hurricanes and cyclones and cause lung diseases), fires (cause pollution, mud slides, and deforestation), refrigerants (like CFC's), solvents (including benzene destroy the ozone layer raising skin cancer rates) and plastics; cars, airplanes, ships and most electricity production (causes pollution including raised CO2 levels) are human problems we need to fix to keep life on earth sustainable! The federal government needs to adopt a pollution surcharge to balance the field and advance new technologies. We must pay the real price of oil (petrochemicals) including global warming, cleanup and for health effects. But with that we must understand we have never seen what is now happening before. CO2 has never lead to temperature change, but temperature change has led to increases in CO2. The models have to be made as we go along with little evidence! The result is:  change is on the way, we just do not know what changes. But again adding a small amount of CO2 to the atmosphere enlarges the earths sun collection causing warming; increase water in the atmosphere and they form clouds cooling earth but causing flooding. Even natural events are warming earth and causing destruction. The sun has an increased magnetic field causing increases in earthquakes (more destruction), volcanoes (wow, great destruction), and sun spots. Lighting produces ozone near the surface (raising air pollution levels). But humans have destroyed half of the wetlands, cut down nearly half of the rain forest, and advance on the earths grasslands while advancing desertification which increases duststorms. The USA Mayor's have taken a stand and I believe are on the right track, we can have control and can have economic growth. With the peak of oil in the 1970’s, the peak of ocean fishing in the 1980’s, humans must stop procrastinating and make real changes to keep earth sustainable including in the energy debate, finance and regulation. The sun is available to produce energy, bring light to buildings and makes most of human’s fresh water. Composting is the answer to desertification. New dams are the answer to fresh water storage, energy and cooling earth by evaporation, we need many small ones all over (California needs 100 by 2012 and has not even started).

President Bush has made a choice of energy (ethanol) over food and feeding the starving people around the world; this is a choice China has rejected.

That is why I founded CoolingEarth.org, a geoengineering web sight where you can learn more about earth, the atmosphere, and how to sustain life on earth’s surface.

Answer 3

Chi

Here’s a DIY step by step process to build a small solar panel that really works. Its pretty simple but if you have any problems feel free to contact me directly I can walk you threw the process.

Materials you will need

A sheet of copper flashing from the hardware store. This normally costs about $5.00 per square foot. We will need about half a square foot.

Two alligator clip leads.

A sensitive micro-ammeter that can read currents between 10 and 50 microamperes. Radio Shack sells small LCD multimeters that will do, but I used a small surplus meter with a needle.

An electric stove. My kitchen stove is gas, so I bought a small one-burner electric hotplate for about $25. The little 700 watt burners probably won't work -- mine is 1100 watts, so the burner gets red hot.

A large clear plastic bottle off of which you can cut the top. I used a 2 liter spring water bottle. A large mouth glass jar will also work.

Table salt. We will want a couple tablespoons of salt.

Tap water.

Sand paper or a wire brush on an electric drill.

Sheet metal shears for cutting the copper sheet.

The first step is to cut a piece of the copper sheeting that is about the size of the burner on the stove. Wash your hands so they don't have any grease or oil on them. Then wash the copper sheet with soap or cleanser to get any oil or grease off of it. Use the sandpaper or wire brush to thoroughly clean the copper sheeting, so that any sulphide or other light corrosion is removed.

Next, place the cleaned and dried copper sheet on the burner and turn the burner to its highest setting.

As the copper starts to heat up, you will see beautiful oxidation patterns begin to form. Oranges, purples, and reds will cover the copper.

As the copper gets hotter, the colors are replaced with a black coating of cupric oxide. This is not the oxide we want, but it will flake off later, showing the reds, oranges, pinks, and purples of the cuprous oxide layer underneath.

The last bits of color disappear as the burner starts to glow red.

When the burner is glowing red-hot, the sheet of copper will be coated with a black cupric oxide coat. Let it cook for a half an hour, so the black coating will be thick. This is important, since a thick coating will flake off nicely, while a thin coat will stay stuck to the copper.

After the half hour of cooking, turn off the burner. Leave the hot copper on the burner to cool slowly. If you cool it too quickly, the black oxide will stay stuck to the copper.

As the copper cools, it shrinks. The black cupric oxide also shrinks. But they shrink at different rates, which makes the black cupric oxide flake off.

The little black flakes pop off the copper with enough force to make them fly a few inches. This means a little more cleaning effort around the stove, but it is fun to watch.

When the copper has cooled to room temperature (this takes about 20 minutes), most of the black oxide will be gone. A light scrubbing with your hands under running water will remove most of the small bits. Resist the temptation to remove all of the black spots by hard scrubbing or by flexing the soft copper. This might damage the delicate red cuprous oxide layer we need to make to solar cell work.

Cut another sheet of copper about the same size as the first one. Bend both pieces gently, so they will fit into the plastic bottle or jar without touching one another. The cuprous oxide coating that was facing up on the burner is usually the best side to face outwards in the jar, because it has the smoothest, cleanest surface.

Attach the two alligator clip leads, one to the new copper plate, and one to the cuprous oxide coated plate. Connect the lead from the clean copper plate to the positive terminal of the meter. Connect the lead from the cuprous oxide plate to the negative terminal of the meter.

Now mix a couple tablespoons of salt into some hot tap water. Stir the saltwater until all the salt is dissolved. Then carefully pour the saltwater into the jar, being careful not to get the clip leads wet. The saltwater should not completely cover the plates -- you should leave about an inch of plate above the water, so you can move the solar cell around without getting the clip leads wet.

The solar cell is a battery, even in the dark, and will usually show a few microamps of current.

That’s it it’s that simple. If you’d a more detailed process and some pics (ouldn’t put them here) it’s available along with some other DIY alternative energy projects at http://www.agua-luna.com/guides.html

Hope this helped, feel free to contact me personally if you have any questions, I’m willing to walk you step by step threw the process.

Dan Martin

Retired Boeing Engineer now living 100% Off-the-Grid with my family, using Alternative Energy & loving every minute.

for more info visit agua-luna com