Date Posted 
-
William Schlerf4/2/2013 @ 10:51 AM
Solar Panel Project Has Creative Juices Cooking in Class at Tower Hill
Peter Rust's Engineering Bootcamp class designed solar collectors for a project called Heat for Humanity. Read the story from The News Journal.
It’s not often that discussions about designing solar panels include a disposable ziti pan.Those humble tin pans were put to good use in a solar panel designed by Tower Hill students during a high school “engineering bootcamp.” The students painted the pans black, and along with insulation, duct tape and some clear plastic, they pulled together a design to field test.
On Thursday, the students set up one of several tests at the private school to see if their concepts work. Though the solar panels may be a low-cost, low-tech design, they require high-level thinking skills.
"Encouraging creativity and innovation is key," said teacher Peter Rust, "and so is learning to move quickly to test prototypes."
The engineering course was added this year at the school and is meant to help students learn concepts through hands-on projects.
“We embrace creative thinking and we have no problem with failure because that’s often how innovation happens,” Rust said.
The semester-long class will include several projects after the solar panel design. Later, it will create hovercrafts and draw up plans for an “app” – which is a program that runs on a smartphone or other mobile device.
The solar panel project is called Heat for Humanity because students were instructed to create something that could be used to heat a Habitat For Humanity house.
“This is going to be a way to help people out,” said senior Will Mette.
Mette, who plans to study business and finance in college, said the engineering class helped him to think about creative solutions as the team encountered problems.
Senior Jody Gregory, who intends to be a humanities major in college, found the engineering class to be rewarding because it enabled her to see connections between classwork and the real world.
“The design part is really interesting,” Gregory said.
Republished with permission from The New Journal, by Nichole Dobo, Education Editor
