Now that we have finished up our shake probe experiment, we’ve transitioned into an alternative method of electricity generation: solar energy. Although a very popular option among the eco-friendly, it has notable drawbacks that we seek to address here. Most significantly is the fact that it is solar energy: the sun isn’t up 24 hours a day everywhere on the planet, so this energy must be stored and used with as few resources as possible to sustain it.
Here’s what we used:
1 solar cell
1 voltage probe
NXT adaptor
NXT (light sensor)
1 light source
Ruler
3 Colored film filters
Labview VI
To better understand solar energy, we will measure the outputs of both the solar cell’s voltage and the light intensity of the NXT’s light sensor.
Here’s how we did it:
1. We first opened up the solarlab.vi as usual procedure goes.
2. After setting up the experiment, we tested the apparatus with no light being shone on it.
3. Conducted similar testing at distances varying from 2 cm to 38 cm as well as with 3 different color filters each.
4. Ensure recording of data in our Excel sheet, posted below.**
**Graphs unavailable due to email issues. Instead, graphs’ representations will be discussed in paragraph form later on.
The vi software enabled us to record voltage and light intensity of the solar cell and light sensor, respectively. As said results indicate, the greater the distance between the light source and solar panel. This can be attributed to the loss of usable energy because of the longer distance and increased time it takes for light to move from the source to the panel.
In regard to changes from different colored filters:
Yellow far and away produced the highest voltage at a number of given speeds, best represented and graphed at 5cm with a voltage of .13927. This became abundantly clear when compared to the turquoise and red filters, which recorded voltages of .10078 and .12664 respectively. Adding in our perception of no filter accruing the highest voltage, we postulated that the lighter the color, the higher the voltage. Perhaps this has a minor aberration due to the lucidity of yellow compared to the much more deep turquoise and red, but our graphed findings do indeed conclude that the brighter (and closer) the better for voltage delivery.