Page 23 - Menlo Magazine: Winter 2018

MENLO MAGAZINE
❝This would provide a renewable source of energy that would hopefully provide the school with an invaluable service for years to come.❞
Dr. Dann thought students in his Applied Science Research (ASR) course could help. He shared
the experience with his class. Two seniors, Miller Geschke and Niko Bhatia, were especially excited by the challenge and began working to create a solar-powered battery with an outlet to power the copier that could be set up onsite at the school.
“Our design includes solar panels along with batteries to store power, an inverter to turn the DC power of the solar panels into AC current for the copier, and a charge controller to manage the ow of current between the other three devices,” says Miller. And, if all goes as planned, students from the Menlo Abroad program will transport and install the device at the Banjika Secondary School as part of Menlo’s rst trip to Tanzania. “This would provide a renewable source of energy that would hopefully provide the school with an invaluable service for years to come.”
While they are still working to nalize the design, there have been a few challenges and learning opportunities along the way. Shipping resources to the area is expensive and unreliable, and it’s been di cult to determine what resources, like
batteries, will be available in Tanzania. “We’ve done a lot of research to try and nd out what they might have access to, but communication can be complex,” Niko says. “And so we’ve made some guesses as to what will be compatible with what we are building here.”
“I think one of the biggest learning moments for me was when we tested our array for the rst time and got blaring noises and fault lights,” said Miller. “It’s really tough to be optimistic when your rst attempt is essentially a complete failure, but there’s always a reason why something isn’t working.”
Niko and Miller both say this has been an amazing experience, and yet there is more to do. “We shouldn’t just stop with one outlet,” Niko said. “Having access to just one outlet isn’t the solution to this problem, and if our design works, we may be able to build an ecosystem of solar panels to better support the village.”
Miller agreed, “We could essentially create a template for others to build many of these arrays since we already know
that a similar [set up] would be very useful in the town near the school in Tanzania for simply charging phones. To be able to create a completely sustainable, stable power supply for an entire town would be an incredible success.”
OEmpathetic Engineering
n the other side of campus, students in Mike Kulbieda’s seventh grade computer science classes have been challenged to use their
coding skills for good and create a computer game with a custom controller for a real “client” named Tim McCloskey (www.thetimmccloskeyfamilyfoundation.org).
Tim, a friend of Mike’s, was involved in a tragic accident that paralyzed him from the shoulders down when he was just 20 years old. He now has limited use of his hands, and operating computer games can be nearly impossible. Mike thought
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