DIY Solar Charger workshop - SYKE
DIY SOLAR CHARGER
DIY Solar charger workshop for SYKE "IHAN PIHALLA" project.
“DIY Solar Charger kit for schools and individuals.”
This workshop was done at the request of SYKE (Finnish Environment Institute) to make an educational package for Finnish schools.
The aim was to make a DIY package & guide for Solar Charger system in which accompanied by Arduino Weather station & battery pack. The DIY package consist of three main components, Arduino weather station provided by SenseBox , Solar charging system and a battery provided by HIDE.
*Solar PET is a place where the workshop participants share their already made products and ask questions and guide for their future projects.
THe story behind
Solar Charger kit.
DIY package, which HIDE was responsible for designing and making, were the weatherproof Solar Charging system with a battery pack. The aim was to make a simple package that anyone (age from 10-∞) can make.
The workshop preparation took six months and we faced many challenges including finding & testing best components and choosing the best sustainable solution available to us.
One of the main challenges we faced was the solar panel weatherproof cover/casing, even though we found the perfect candidate for our casing (tarpaulin a PVC -fabric) but since it was made out of PVC we faced the environmental challenge.
While looking for a solution to our problem we found that the problem is not the material itself but the waste that it is produced due to it; It's no secret that most PVC-cover manufacturers produce lots of waste during the manufacturing process and those extra bits of unused PVC-fabric ends up in a landfill, we wanted to prevent making more waste & rather than using the new PVC-fabric we recycled our cover from the waste. In our search for finding the recycled the excess PVC-fabric left over from manufacturing. We contacted Tarpaulin Oy. and they were very helpful and provided us with their excess PVC-fabric for our workshop.
Image Source: Hukka PVC. Tarpaulin Oy. 09 FEb 2018. Web. 09 Feb 2018. <www.tarpaulin.fi>.
End result of Solar Charger made out of excess PVC-fabric
details of syke
Workshop.
The workshop was held in SYKE headquarter on 24th of January 2018 in Helsinki, Finland; our participants were teachers from all over the Finland (Rauma, Lohja, Jyväskylä,...).
We did follow the same theme as our previous workshops; starting with educating and introducing the renewable energy (especially solar panels) to the participants and in the later stages of the workshop we assisted the participants on a hands on approach in making their own solar panel system.
“To bridge the gap between solar energy and individuals by providing the people with direct experience of using solar panels”
Ironically the workshop took place on a very snowy day. Around 10 teachers from all around Finland, Jyväskylä, Lohja, Turku and many others were participating in making the solar charger. They were very cautious during the making process and were recording the process by taking pictures and notes.
Some of them found a bit of difficulty in glueing the fabric and panel and needed some support. However, they were very excited and enjoying the making process while learning more about renewable energy.
After the workshop, a few teachers kept asking us about solar energy, for example, where to buy a different size of panels and how to add more panels to increase the Solar Charger capacity while other were discussing on how to build a solar system on their summerhouse.
Overall It was a very interesting experience for us to meet the Finnish teachers and more importantly finding out that they are thinking and learning about solar energy and willing to pass on the knowledge to the future generation in their classes.
We are now preparing a DIY kit with all the components inside and we will soon start dispatching the first Solar DIY kit.
DIY SOLAR CHARGER KIT.
soon available for purchase.
Photos from the event:
Event client
Collaborator
http://www.syke.fi
www.tarpaulin.fi