Portable Event Solar Phone Charger

This solar phone charger is designed to be deployed at outdoor events like weddings and concerts so that people can charge their phones. Normally extension cords or large cumbersome solar umbrellas have to be set up to fill this need.

The one issue is that people have to supervise their charging and the charger itself can be stolen. In a future iteration I will add essentially a port for a bike lock and locking compartments for phones to sit in while charging.

I would also like to spread the usb ports around the  edges more so that they are not so condensed. It will change the experience from waiting in line to just walking up and plugging into your own space.

Vertical Wind Turbine

This is a project I built in high school when I was interested in renewable energy. This wooden turbine prototype was designed to react to wind in any direction and have as little resistance as possible. Each turbine flap is hinged so that each will fold in against the center of the turbine when moving into the wind but extend when moving with the wind. The hope was to gain the maximum efficiency from a breeze.

When it was done it did work. But because the wood is a little too heavy for the application, when the turbine began to spin very quickly the flaps would begin to extend, due to the centrifugal force, and the efficiency would be lost. But that is an easy problem to fix with reduced generator speed and lighter flaps.

It was made with a lazy-susan and a few scrap pieces of plywood from the high school wood-shop.