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The Story Behind a Project
The Solar Power Slot Car
On Wednesday May 31st, Dos Pueblos students involved in the Engineering program had the ability to show their skills. Today was the DPEA ( Dos Pueblos Engineering Academy) Showcase, where groups of seniors are able to demonstrate the projects they’ve worked on all year. From innovative versions of the classic Newton's Cradles, Etch-a-Sketch, and object levitation to sand fluidization and more. Sequoia Chamlee is one of the students in the DPEA program who discussed her group's project. She explained the prompt her group was given for their project.
“They basically just told us to make an exhibit using the concept of solar power and make it run some sort of car or car track, and we had to basically create that entire idea ourselves,” Sequoia said.
After receiving their prompt, her team worked on their project all year to design their project. They first started by designing their parts digitally before moving on to manufacturing and constructing their project. Sequoia described some of the challenges they faced when constructing their design.
“The first major issue that I kind of encountered personally, how part of the project is powered, is based on manual energy. It’s basically showing solar powered energy versus hand-made cranked energy. I had to create a design and a layout for this generator.”
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Sequoia Chamlee (second from the left) and her teammates, outside the cafeteria where they are demonstrating the effects of solar power versus manual force on a racetrack. Credits to Kaiser Orduna.
Overcoming Challenges
One of the cars used in Sequoia's team's demonstration of solar powered energy versus hand cranked energy. Photo taken by Kaiser Orduna
Sequoia and her team also had to change the solar panel after experiencing issues with that aspect as well.
Sequoia also shared how the DPEA works and in a more broad sense how it affects projects.
“I feel like the entire ninth through eleventh grades are just trying to find out what works. I feel like engineering in itself is a huge trial and error process and figuring out, oh this aspect does work, this aspect doesn’t, and then making alterations and modifications based on it…you have a lot of failures but you also get little bits of success out of it and than you shape it into a big project,” Sequoia said.
Sequoia further explained the lengthy process of designing this generator, spending three months designing the generator, as well as the further constraints her team had to deal with.
“…Tried to make it perfect, spent a lot of time on it, only to be told it wasn’t possible and it couldn’t really be in our design, it just didn’t really fit with how we wanted the project to work. So I did waste a lot of time on that but it’s fine because it developed my skills in CAD,” Sequoia said.
Besides the challenging aspect of designing a generator, she also brought up the issue with the solar panel itself.
“It was creating way too much energy, it had way too much voltage and so the car was always flying off the track,” she said.
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The other car used to demonstrate the two variables. Taken by Kaiser Orduna.
The Positives
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Although Sequoia talks about the challenges you face in the DPEA, she mentions the positive outcomes she’s received being in the program.
“I really love senior year and the experience I’ve been able to have. I’ve had a really great group and I think they’re some of my best friends now. We’ve created a really strong, hopefully lifelong connection, and so many funny memories. By working and by all experiencing the same highs and lows of this project,”
Sequoia overall appears to have a very optimistic outlook on her experiences in the DPEA and with her group as she is graduating from this program and this school year is shortly coming to an end.
“We’ve kind of all bonded and we’ve created this really strong friendship based on what we’ve gone through this year. So that’s kind of been my favorite part and obviously creating a successful project is really fun. I think in 10 years I’m going to remember my friends, what amazing people I got to work with, and all the great mentors I have,” Senior DPEA student, Sequoia Chamlee, said.