What Was This Project?
As our world increases its usage of solar energy, our school need to keep up. So, as San Marin begins to plan out a new science building, its the perfect opportunity to expand the solar usage in our school. That was the task at hand for our latest STEM project, Passive Solar Design. For this assignment, we had to design a new science building for San Marin High School that incorporated solar fixtures. Our group, consisting of me, Kaleb Ryan, and Mateo Eusebio made a slide show and an online model of our building. This was all presented before a panel of the architects who are working on the building. Over the course of this project, we've studied a variety of different scientific subjects. These have ranged from the layers of the earth to the atom. This web page includes the slideshow, concepts we studied, my reflection on our project, and anything that goes with these.
Concepts:
Earth's Layers: To start of this project, we started by studying the layers of the Earth. We used the book, A History Of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson as a jumping off point for our studies. Firstly, we looked into earthquakes and the phenomena of areas far from the earthquake being affected, albeit at a small level. This is because of the shock waves from the earthquake being bounced to other locations through the Earth's core. This also led scientists to discover there was a core in the first place. We know today that the Earth has many layers. These include the thin crust which is only 25 miles thick. Next there is the rock mantle which is made up up of two layers. The upper layer is 250 miles long while the lower core which is closer to the core, is much larger being 1,700 miles long. Lastly is the core, which just like the mantle is split into two parts. The core is also the center of the Earth and where everything on Earth is drawn to. The outer core is made up of mostly liquid iron and is 3,200 miles long. The inner core is 3,959 miles long and also mostly made up of liquid iron. This is the entirety of the Earth's layers.
Model Of Orbits: After looking at the Earth, we broadened our horizons to include the entirety of the Solar System. We first had to construct a model of the Solar System with what we knew already. Next, we learned new information that would aide us in making a more enhanced model like vocabulary terms and fact sheets. For the second model, we had to choose three data points and three celestial bodies to display. We chose to show rotation period, mean temperate, and distance from the sun, and for the celestial bodies we chose Earth, Neptune, and Pluto. Our specific data can be seen in the model. As our phenomena, we noticed the further a planet was from the sun the colder it got. This is because the planets farther from the sun receive less radiation from the sun. There is no clear pattern of decline in temperate with the distance, just a decline is apparent.
Original Model With Added Details
Final Model:
Solar Angles/Daylight Design Model: After looking at the planets, we then studied solar design. We looked into different day lighting techniques and tested them with various solar lighting angles. Below are explanations of different day lighting techniques, a video showing off the solar house we tested on, solar angle data table, and my write up on what the best solar fixture is in a certain situation.
Clerestory Window- A highly elevated window. It's used to bring in sunlight at certain angles.
Solar Tube- A tube inside a roof that connects a small bubble on the top of the roof to an opening on the inside to let in a small concentrated beam of light.
Solar Shelf- A shelf that sits outside of a window that reflects light onto a ceiling and lights up a room.
Skylight- A large window on the ceiling of a building that brings in direct sunlight.
Clerestory Window- A highly elevated window. It's used to bring in sunlight at certain angles.
Solar Tube- A tube inside a roof that connects a small bubble on the top of the roof to an opening on the inside to let in a small concentrated beam of light.
Solar Shelf- A shelf that sits outside of a window that reflects light onto a ceiling and lights up a room.
Skylight- A large window on the ceiling of a building that brings in direct sunlight.
Percents represent the amount of light the room got naturally.
Anatomical Structure: Similar to the Earth's layers, we used A History Of Nearly Everything to learn about this subject. First we looked at a molecule, which is two or more atoms that are working together and bonded. They are very abundant. The Gold Foil experiment is an experiment which contains a one atom thin piece of gold foil which is blasted by a alpha particle. In the results, 99.999% of the time the particle would go through, but 0.001% of the time the particle would bounce of the foil. This experiment told us there is something small and dense in the atom, the nucleus, with lots of empty space in the rest of the atom. Protons and Neutrons make up the nucleus with electrons being in that empty space of the atom. Protons determine the element, neutrons decided the isotope, and electrons the ion. Lastly, protons and neutrons have a mass of 1 atomic unit and electrons have a mass of 0.
Energy Justification Document: Towards the end of this project and to prepare for our Power Novato project, we looked at different types of energy. We focused on the pros and cons, and how it works. As a class we made one large document containing all this information. Our group did the hydro and biomass/biofuel sections. This can be seen below:
Reflection:
This STEM project for me, I feel was one of my weaker ones. But first the things I did well in. One thing I believe i did well in was designing the design of the building. I feel this was a huge win in getting our project going. Another thing I believe I did well in all around was helping keep everyone on task. I tried to make sure everyone had something to do at all times. This definitely aided in our project overall.
My time in this project was plagued by returning issues from my previous efforts. One thing was my presenting skills. Last project, I feel I did great in this. Part of it was I felt under prepared. While we did go over the presentation many times, I still didn't feel confident about what I was talking about. Also the fact that I had to present in front of professional architects increased my nerves. Another thing I feel I lacked in was helping out at every step.
My time in this project was plagued by returning issues from my previous efforts. One thing was my presenting skills. Last project, I feel I did great in this. Part of it was I felt under prepared. While we did go over the presentation many times, I still didn't feel confident about what I was talking about. Also the fact that I had to present in front of professional architects increased my nerves. Another thing I feel I lacked in was helping out at every step.