IPower

☀️~Inspiration~☀️

Our Group Project Why was determined to make a change and groundbreaking innovation to affect the way the world views Climate Change. We did research looking at previous projects about people using technology to make people more aware of Climate Change. That’s when an idea came to our heads, instead of just creating a software to help spread the word about the effects we have on climate change. We should develop a device and software that communicates across a network and monitor the amount of wattage from certain devices and places in the household. While notifying the user and providing helpful tips to conserve energy. That’s where the name “Ipower” developed as the next generation we are responsible for the change that happens in our communities. We are the power that can make a change. #Ipower

🧐~What it does~🧐

We aimed to develop a smart exoskeleton that could be customized for any existing panel and maximize solar output. The exoskeleton is going to be equipped with sensors and modules to give real-time data about the panel to the user. Accumulated dust is a major problem for reduced solar panel outputs, hence we developed a cleaning mechanism attached to the structure. Axis tracking panels have better results, so using servo motors, we believe we can transform every panel to reach its maximum potential.

🛠️~Our Plan to Build~🛠️

Since Ipower is still in its developmental phase. We are still researching ways to go about working. As of now, we have developed a project schedule in which we are currently on track to begin the prototype development phase for our device and software. Some updates on this project are such as using 3-d printing to formulate the device or parts of the device. We plan to create 3 versions of “Ipower” with each having different purposes depending on circumstances such as the size of the location where the device will be placed. In software development, at school, we are doing research about learning how to program in C++ and Python to move on to the prototype phase of software development.

🏃~Challenges we ran into~🏃

A challenge that we overcame as a group was we didn't know much about climate change. We were stuck on the idea of climate change being a global issue but his do we start to make a change? Brainstorming as a collective was the hardest because there are a lot of technologies and innovations already available for the world to have access to. So we asked ourselves “How do we stand out”. We wanted to design our technology to be affordable and give people across the world equitable access to use regardless of Residency, Economic status and so much more to consider. We spent late hours overnight thinking of ways to overcome the struggle of creating a solution that could benefit everyone.

🏆~Accomplishments that we're proud of~🏆

We are proud of the fact we could identify the problem and create a roadmap to success to start working to develop a prototype of the software. Very few of us in our group have little to no knowledge of how to program or code or even start working towards developing software. But the community of people we participated in this hackathon helped give us the resources we needed to get started on the framework of our idea.

📚~What we learned~📚

We learned that some of the best ideas start from the simplest of things. When we first started thinking of ideas and solutions we wanted to go overboard and we were unorganized about our planning. But it took for us to come together and realize that let's start with a simple idea and expand and the opportunities for improvement grew as we began to work more like a team.

💡~What's next for Ipower~💡

Our plan next is to research opportunities for grants to get our project funded, and reach out to experts and mentors who are in our desired field. An begin our prototype development phase and get feedback and results on how we can improve our technology.

Built With

• none