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Science Fair Project: Alternative Energy

Decent Essays

Alternative Energy

Introduction:
Last year for my science fair project I personally invented my own version of a sun tracking solar panel. The solar panel was able to produce three watts of power per hour regardless of its small three-inch by three-inch size, showing me that having direct access to the sun can increase the amount of watts gained multifold. This year, instead of researching over the topic of solar panels, I instead inquired alternative methods of producing energy from economical sources. In this experiment I chose to use a water turbine to produce electricity which in the long run was much more difficult to do.

Background:
My goal for this project was to make a semi or fully portable source of energy. Upon analysis I found …show more content…

To create a more realistic project I added a pump to pump the water from the lower end of the turbine over to the elevated end and had them connected to the same source, a battery pack. The water turbine supposedly would pour electricity into the battery pack faster than the pump was able to withdraw it, and have a overall positive amount of change in the total amount of electricity in the battery …show more content…

The law states that energy cannot be created or destroyed, but it can be transformed. Energy transformation, also known as energy conversion is the process of changing one form of energy to one other. More simple forms of energy include motion, heat, light and sound, yet even more basic forms of energy are kinetic and potential energy forms. To improve upon this project, I decided to add another form of energy to the mix. I decided to use movement as the secondary source of energy, which contains energy of the kinetic form. The way I was able to add this supplementary source of energy is utilizing gravity. By having the water drop from a certain height, I was able to use the gravitational pull on the water, increasing the falling speed of the water. The water falling at a quicker pace increases the amount of energy the water turbine collects, increasing the amount of electricity, the type of energy, it can

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