Solar Water Heating Project

For an engineering course we were tasked with designing a project in teams of engineers with different roles. We had to create a project that, within a set duration of time and with a specified budget, could increase the temperature of water. Our team used different materials we had researched about to create a container that would most efficiently trap solar energy and heat with a $75 budget. At the end all teams’ projects were ranked against each other to see whose was most efficient.

During this project I was the team leader which consisted of me engineering the majority of our project’s design as well as our research. I also did a large portion of the team’s calculations as well as the set up of our microcontroller.

I worked on this project freshman year of university for about 2 months.

The main goal of this project was to create a design that would be more efficient than a control case and to do well in comparison to the other groups. As another goal we wanted our project to have several different types of insulation and heating methods as backups. We also wanted our project to come across as innovative and not a typical project.

Our design process included many of us using our knowledge of different topics to bring our ideas together. I did research as to what metal container would conduct heat the best for the base of our design and I decided on using a copper pot. As someone with knowledge of cars I thought of using a glow plug connected to a solar panel. One of our project members from the Balkans suggested using glass wool which is used in their roofs as an insulator. We decided on an additional layer of foam and a glass roof to be the final sealing container for our project.

The result of the project was that we successfully ranked first place in the course with our design. Our design was mathematically the most efficient causing our project to heat up the water the fastest across our 30 minute testing time. The skills I used to contribute to the project included engineering physics, electrical engineering, microcontrollers and microcontroller programming, and engineering design.