Last week Mr. Vale came in and presented to the class. He showed up a peltier device, a stirling engine, an electric bug zapper and a solar motor. I might just be a closet science nerd, but I was genuinely interested and fascinated by everything he showed us. He mentioned how most of the things he showed us were fairly old technologies that has been around for a while (the peltier device and the stirling engine being the oldest). It really amazed me how some of the things worked. The peltier device basically runs off of the polarity of metal and water. The solar motor was also really neat because it was floating and actually spun pretty fast. I though the stirling engine was also really cool because it runs off of the steam of hot water, which is something that is readily available. It made me wonder if this technology is so old then why isn’t it being applied more often? It may not be as efficient and produce as much energy as other sources, but I think it should be used and combined with other sources to help support our energy needs in a sustainable manner.
stirling engine:
solar motor: 