Part of the mission of Mbaracayu Forest Reserve School in Paraguay is to educate children and their families in different forms of sustainable energy that will hopefully be implemented in their homes as well. One such form of alternative energy is produced by the school’s Scheffler Reflector, a device used to concentrate the sun’s rays onto a single point for the purpose of heating water to be used for cooking and cleaning. The problem, however, is that the reflector’s tracking system is malfunctioning; if it cannot follow the sun then it cannot focus the sun’s rays and the energy is lost. Our project team designed a solution to this problem by replacing the tracking system of the school’s reflector with an electric system controlled by a computer chip interface. We will provide the school with the tracking system, an instructional pamphlet that will help school personnel operate and maintain the reflector, and the computer program that will control the reflector’s movement. This will ensure that reflector can be used to its fullest potential, to both educate the students and reduce energy costs for the school.

Creator

• Trumbley, Adam
• Gelin, Marc
• Calvao, Dominick
• Kordell, Steven

Contributors

• Nikitina, Svetlana

Subject

• Recover, Reuse, and Recycle: Building a Lasting World

Publisher

• Worcester Polytechnic Institute

Language

• English

Identifier

• GPS_2011_GRAND_Project_SolaRevolution

Year

• 2011

Date created

• 2011-01-01

Resource type

• Poster

Rights statement

• In Copyright

License

• Creative Commons BY-NC Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International