The theme of today is the solar vehicle, which is a good application for transferring solar energy into electrical energy. Each student worked individually to build a solar vehicle model, and then they powered their solar car directly by light bulbs. The process converting light into electricity works in the following way: solar-powered photovoltaic (PV) panels convert the sun’s rays into electricity by exciting electrons in silicon cells using the photons of light from the sun. Photons have quantum mechanics property, which means it may be partly described in terms not only of particles but also of waves, i.e. wave-particle duality. Thus, the straightforward feeling is the PV panels transfer the heat energy into electricity. Due to all these complex theories, we focused on the energy transformation STEM concept rather than the “photons” theory that is far more beyond the students understanding.
The troubleshooting process was conducted as same as the last semester. The students got some feeling how to do a troubleshooting when the solar car wasn’t moving. A broken solar panel or gears and tires with too much friction can make the bulb light not strong enough to power the car.
