Solar Powered Shoe Store

For our first scimatics project of the year, we fused science and math to create a model building that featured solar panels at certain angles we calculated using trigonometry. Before diving in to the project, we needed to get an idea of what we already know, and what we want to know. To do this, we created a mind map.

As you can see, at this point, all we were brainstorming were things related to solar panels. This was more of the science side, as I was asking questions pertaining to the logistics of how solar panels work and how they are used around the world.

When it came time to start building our model, me and Lucas chose to create a London sneaker store. I got to work drawing out a blueprint of the building and then came time for the trigonometry.

To find the perfect angle to absorb the most solar rays we found the average of London’s June, July, August, and September ideal panel angles and used that angle.

To make sure our solar panel was actually a proper right angle triangle with the correct angles, we used trigonometry to find all side lengths. Now we had to turn our blueprint in to a physical model. Me and Lucas wanted to 3D print ours because we don’t get many opportunities to use the 3D printer and this was a good project to use it for.

With the help of my dad, using his CAD software a 3D rendering was created and then printed on the schools printer. We had to create 2 drafts of the 3D model because the first draft would have taken 13 hours to print, that’s why our final model is relatively small. The final step in this project was to create a video in which we inform citizens of our city in how to set up their solar panels. Our teamwork was much better than I anticipated if I’m honest, I tackled the script and Lucas the filming and editing, and in the end we created a PSA for the people of London!