Full-Scale Solar Team

For the week of 3/27/19 we have narrowed down an idea on what to work with for clamping the solar panels from underneath. With spring break next week we are going to be putting in a lot of work to ensure we have a good presentation the following meeting. For the week to come we are going to be generating multiple ideas to implement the clamp and make solidwork models as well as sketches. We will also be researching several racking structures with and emphasis on cost per length. Further information for clamps will be gathered from google patents to help us create several ideas.

This week, the Solar PV team focused on several key concepts that Dr. Furman, Mr. Swenson, and Mr. Abulet had helped guide to the team attention. The concepts are listed below. 1. Get in touch with Sunpower Distributors and R.S. Hughes Establishing a connection with these two entities will help the team gather more information about real mounting solutions and real adhesives/velcros that can be used on this project. 2. Work on putting together a racking solution in solidworks and marrying it to a frame. By doing this, along with some prototypes, the team can learn more about with solutions work and which ones may need more tweaking to work. 3. View racking structures for ideas Just like the solutions from the distributors, this will give us better ideas of how to marry components. 4. Max load for solar panel, or wind load that would break the panels. Understanding the maximum wind load on the panels will help was be aware of where to mount, what angle to mount, and ...

As for progress with the Solar Team, this week we discussed more ideas with Prof. Furman and Ron about different methods of mounting solar panels to the frame. Progress has been made. Lastly, the Solar Team will work and brainstorm more ideas of mounting, as well as calculations of force caused by wind.

For the week of 3/6/19 we gave our presentation to the class. We later were informed by Professor Furman about how our current project fails to meet the design specifications sought out early on last semester. This happened due to the uncertainty of the feasibility of Velcro, we went with a safer option and focused on improving the look of the canopy structure itself. We are currently on a new path to achieve our design goal, we have restructured the way we are approaching this and are working to achieve our goal. Essentially we are back at square 1 and that puts a lot of pressure on the team. We will also meet with Professor Furman at least once a week besides Wednesdays to further update him on our progress and create accountability for our project. We have roughly 2 months to get this done, we will not fail.

This week, the Full Scale Solar PV Racking team focused on what the team needs to do to prepare for our presentation, whether that involves finalizing our design, working with other teams on getting the other necessary information that relates to our part of the project, or just assembling the presentation and assigning parts. The team is also preparing a poster for some visitors that Mr. Swenson is planning to have visit the Superway facility next week. A couple of tasks that the team has decided that needs to be completed are 1. Work on presentation 2. Finalize model for presentation 3. Have a finalized bill of materials to start budgeting and funding project 4. Integrate the guideway model from Guideway team to the PV Rack. With all of these goals in mind, the team will continually work throughout the weekend and the next week to be prepared for the presentation and beyond.