The End of the AutoGarden

Time has come and passed, decisions have been made, both tactical and strategically, the end is near, and according to some, according to the very, very select few who know what they are talking about, it has been said, that the time for the Auto-Garden subset of EDD class, is now, and the shining sun beyond the horizons of the presentation, is nothing but imminent victory.  We have successful integrated our electronics with our microcontroller, and all systems are set to go.  Our system functions as follows:
 The Arduino microcontroller sends signals opening and closing relays turning on and off pumps and lights, which are set into an aesthetically lamp design.  The stem of this lamp houses all wires, protecting all but the pump leads from water and a short circuit.  Where a normal lamp is positioned right side up, ours is upside down.  Here is a picture.

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Nitinol Final Update

The Stirling engine group has been hard at work. We have finalized our design.
A brief overview of the flow of energy that makes our machine work: The waste
heat leaving the car's combustion engine causes the Stirling engine to run. This
then creates electrical energy that goes to the charge controller. The energy
flows from the charge controller to a battery, charging the battery. The energy
that leaves the battery goes to the power inverter where it is converted from
direct current to alternating current. Alternating current enables us to power
our heaters. We added new parts to the project, including the Stirling box. This
is an insulating box with openings that allow for the radiator fluid to flow
through it (we are capturing heat from radiator fluid to power the Stirling
engine). The hot side of the Stirling engine is also in this box. Inside of the
box, a copper tube carries the fluid from one side to the other while letting
some of the heat transfer to the engine. It also prevents the rest of the car's
interior from getting too hot. We have been preparing for the final
presentation. I have been in charge of making the PowerPoint. People from my
team have been contributing to the PowerPoint as well.  The Stirling engine team
has been building a prototype for our machine. We are giving our final
prevention today on June 22.

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End of the year - in the words of our Fearless Leader

 Throughout this year, our team has achieved more than I could've imagined
we would.
 The development of an eco-friendly car heater, the creation of an
autonomous garden, and the expansion of last year's Engineering Young
Engineers(EYE) have all taken place in this year's class. At the start of the
year we made up two separate groups, the continuation of EYE and what we called
the nitinol group. After consideration, we split into three groups, EYE, the
Auto-garden group, and the Stirling Engine group.
    In EYE, we have expanded
our outreach to new areas outside of Saratoga Springs while also increasing our
influence in our home town. We have also created new tools for expansion,
allowing new schools to adopt our programs on their own. Developments like this
will allow the transitions in the future to proceed smoothly.
    In the
Auto-garden group, we have developed an aesthetically pleasing, autonomous
gardening system. With help from local gardening store owners and New York City
residents we have created a prototype that will raise a Moth Orchid with almost
no human interaction.
    In the Stirling Engine group we tackled the problem
of heating your car quickly during the winter. Using an environmentally friendly
heat engine to store the wasted energy from a combustion engine, we developed a
clean way to instantly heat your car.
    The Engineering Design Development
class of 2015 has overcome a lot of problem throughout the year. From the
beginning of the year, we were lacking the specific resource time.  On a
crunched time schedule, we worked hard and managed to do some remarkable things.

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Wednesday April 15th, Nitinol

In the hydroponics group we are currently moving on with our second phase design. This design will be a lamp that will be designed to grow an orchid hydroponically.  Building this product will be the culmination of our entire year and will require us to use everything we have learned over the course of this project.  In this design, the electronics, nutrient solution, and pump will all be located in a modified flower pot.  At the rim of this pot we will put our flood-drain table which will support the orchid.  We purchased an LED bulb that we will screw into a mount that is traditionally used for a regular lightbulb.  One of the ways we are considering maximizing the light that gets to the orchid is lining the inside of the lampshade with tin foil.  This would have the added benefit of keeping the UV radiation from being dispersed around the room.  

In addition to working on designing and building our project, we are also continuing are market research.  We have gone to florists in our area and asked them if they think our project potentially has a market with their current customers.  We are also reaching out to various people who currently live in cities to see if they would be interested in autonomously growing a plant in their homes.  We are reaching our especially to those in cities because they typically have limited space and light.  We hope that these contacts can give us a better understanding of our market.

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March 26th EYE

Educating Young Engineers has continued work on their March 28th “Engineering Athletics” Saturday Program at Ballard Elementary. Registration is almost full and all preliminary logistics have been completed to ensure the success of another program in our partnership. Ballard Elementary’s first LEGO Club session is drawing to a close after many weeks of teaching the young engineers through problem based and teamwork challenges. During the second session EYE will not be in attendance so that the parents can run the LEGO Club for many years without the assistance of EYE. Geyser Road Elementary’s Science Extravaganza introduced students to EYE while they designed their own slow racer on a peg board.

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March 19th EYE

EYE is continuing the mission to create interest in STEM fields in elementary students through LEGO clubs and Saturday programs.  EYE is also working with high school students to create an EYE club and working with Dorothy Nolan to integrate WeDo LEGO technology into the fourth grade curriculum.  A new session of LEGO club has started at Dorothy Nolan and EYE continues to support the club in teaching engineering through teamwork and problem solving.  LEGO clubs have also been started at Ballard Elementary School as well as Geyser Road Elementary School.  EYE has continued to work with Ballard Elementary on the second Saturday Engineering Program the school will be running, and planning is in the final stages.  At the high school, volunteers are being recruited for the first EYE club meeting on March 19th, where students can become involved in designing and testing activities as well as working on the logistics of the EYE website and getting involved for the future of EYE.  This club will hopefully allow the continued expansion of EYE Saturday programs and LEGO clubs to other school districts and get the future leaders of the organization started early for the coming years.  EYE is also working with Dorothy Nolan fourth grade teachers to integrate LEGO WeDo programming software into the curriculum to teach the simple machines unit, which will allow students to get an early idea of how circuit design works.  

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