Interlake Solar Power: Our CAS Project Highlight

Shyam Arumugam

 

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(2022-2023 Project Members, from left to right: Donovan Mcmillan, Abhijit Guttikonda, Shantanu Govalkar, Neel Sirivara, Benjamin Huh, Ryan Kim, Kanav Arora, Aryan Kedarisetty)

 

Have you ever noticed the bench outside the main entrance? It’s blue and white one with a solar panel leaning on its side. If you don’t know about it, this charging bench was brought to you by Interlake Solar Power!

 

Interlake Solar Power has been in existence well before this year: in fact, it’s been in existence longer than most of us have been in this school!  Interlake Solar Power was started as a CAS project in the spring of 2020, and from its inception, the aim of the project has been to increase awareness about easily implementing solar power as a power source. 

 

The two major missions of Interlake Solar Power are to show that solar power can be easily integrated into our society without the disruption of normal life and demonstrate how engineering can be used to have an impact on our society and environment. With these goals in mind, the team behind the project show the applications of solar panels in the real world. 

 

As of 2022, Washington’s solar power adoption rates have been quite low. The percentage of the state’s electricity that comes from solar power is merely 0.0035%.  In comparison, the percentage of the state’s electricity that comes from hydroelectric power, another clean energy source that is just slightly less reliable, makes up a whopping 77% of the state’s electricity. While hydroelectric power is just as sustainable as solar power, it is dependent on the proper functioning of hydroelectric dams across the state; the Interlake Solar Power hopes for widespread adoption at a local level that can reduce our reliance on hydroelectric power.

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Just like the organizational structure of SR1899, our school’s robotics team, there are currently 3 sub-teams in Interlake Solar Power, with everyone playing an important role.

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The mechanical sub-team is responsible for the production of all of ISP’s portable charging benches. They are responsible for both the design and the construction of the benches. Below are a few pictures that show how the charging bench installed outside the school came to life:

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Programming sub-team is responsible for the creation of ISP’s official website. As of now the website has been constructed on Squarespace, but the sub-team is considering buying a domain and creating their own website from scratch.

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The Outreach sub-team is tasked with maintaining the ISP blog and presenting at events, as well as spreading the word about ISP to as many locals as possible. Because the goal of ISP is to increase awareness about the ease of replacement of traditional energy sources with solar panels, the outreach team’s work is highly significant

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To understand ISP’s immediate goals, I talked to Aryan Kedarisetty, a member of the Outreach team. Aryan describes how the next goal for ISP is to “create a power bank station to place inside a school library for people to charge phones without adapters. The power banks in this station will be recharged using solar panels on a regular basis and can be borrowed to use during the school day.  Because the MagSafe charger that is in place right now isn’t compatible with a majority of older generation phones, this next iteration should be much more useful to phone users and therefore help phone users see solar panels as a useful, versatile, and source of power.”

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It’s rather incredible to see how a group of high schoolers can come together over a shared cause to spread awareness. While Interlake Solar Power’s operations may be centered in the local community, it is in the process of taking baby steps to move them on a more widespread scale. Interlake Solar Power is helping to lay the groundwork for a future that is rooted in sustainable and renewable energy and combatting climate change.