Sun-Tracking Device for Solar Panels Win Engineering Contest for Students
- Sep 27, 2008 3:30 PM EST
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The second Making And Designing Materials Engineering Contest (MADMEC) has recently concluded and a sun-tracking device has won top honors and $10,000 to go along with it.
The contest which is partly sponsored by MIT's Department of Materials Science and Engineering along with General Motors, Saint Gobain, and Dow Chemical aimed to produce energy-related innovations particularly for the developing world. Meant for students, an invention called Heliotrope (pictured) won first prize in the contest. Heliotrope is a sun-tracking device developed to follow the sun across the sky to optimize solar energy collection.
The idea isn't new, of course, except that Heliotrope is passive, and won't require a power source. The system mounts the solar panels on the top of curved arches made of metals such as aluminum and steel. It tracks the sun by making use of the temperature differences between sunny and shaded areas which change the properties of the tracker's materials, curves the arches, and orients the solar panels toward the sun.
Other winners include infrared-blocking coating for windows to minimize entry of sunlight and save on air-conditioning that won second place. Third place went to a wind generator that could be built on roadsides to harness wind energy from passing vehicles. Finally, fourth place is a device that could be attached to bicycles and produce electricity from biking.