Inspiration
With energy prices being at an all time high with no end in sight it is best to look at alternative sources of power. The biggest issue and the reason for the lack of adoption of solar panels is how inconsistent their energy is with shade and other corner cases causing the solar panel to be useless. Our project allows it to move and get the most energy possible.
What it does
Using an Arduino microcontroller connected to the cloud it uses 4 light sensors to monitor sunlight intensity. The servo assembly attached to a solar panel then moves to the most solar intense spot. This data is also sent to an iOS app for further monitoring from a user
How we built it
Using an Arduino microcontroller connected to the cloud we send raw data to an API. From that API formulas are used in order to transform raw data into watt hours for easy user consumption.
Challenges we ran into
The biggest challenge was connecting the Arduino into an API without this connection the project as a whole would not work at all. Through a lot of trial and error of testing and retesting code to see if the issue lies with the Arduino or the API we were able to tie the API to g cloud and the Arduino to its own Arduino iot cloud. From there the two communicate.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
Learning how to connect Arduino to VScode.
What we learned
That hardware can be connected further than just Bluetooth and wifi and that iot can apply to even Arduinos with their limited ram
What's next for Solar Containment Device
Next for the solar containment device would be improving the speed that comes in the form of better logic for the Arduino code and a faster microcontroller that could handle both movement and uploading to the cloud. As well as 3d modeling the actual hardware device for performance and stability.
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