Space Apps Challenge 2017

Power Truck | You are my Sunshine

Jeddah

The Challenge | You are my Sunshine

Create a medium to help people understand energy output from a solar panel, and a tool to plan energy consumption based on expected energy output from solar technologies.

Make it visible !

No Video Provided

As our country (Saudi Arabia) moving towards investments in other energy sources, this project is therefore aimed to benefit from the extra CO2 in our indoor environment (houses) and reuse it to power electricity instead of solely depending on oil.

Power Truck

Project Overview

Our project is titled “Make it Visible”.

Problem Overview:

  • According to the World Energy Council, energy consumption is likely to rise by 50% by the year 2020.which has become single most critical resource on the planet.
  • Most of our power comes from fossil fuels – coals, gas and especially oil, (Gas, natural gases, nuclear power, oil, solar).
  • So Whenever fossil fuel is burnt in cars and power stations, carbon dioxide (CO2) gas is released as a waste product.
  • In our case, Saudi Arabia has been long using oil as 60% as its main energy source. It is changing however in line with the country 2030 vision: being open to invest in alternative energy sources such as solar and now CO2.

Target CO2

Our Focus is to benefit from the extra CO2 released in our environment and reuse it to power (Electricity).

Main Objectives:

  • First, to spread awareness of the availability of an invisible wasted energy in our environment and how we can benefit from it.
  • We are not aiming to eliminate the use of electricity powered by oil, rather we want first to create balance between using electricity powered by (petroleum and human based) then gradually reducing relying on it.
  • Therefor, to create balance between using electricity powered by (petroleum and CO2 use)

Target Audience:

Our main target audience is the average person and it may serve other sectors in the future such as (electricity company, ministry of health and so on)

Targeted environment

  • Indoor houses
  • Preferably kitchens, bathrooms - ventilation occurs through inbuilt fans- but not limited to them

Two approaches:

  • Houses already use electricity powered by oil) (switched off electricity by choice)
  • Temporary cut off power (switched off electricity with no choice)

Process:

  • We have a sensor counts to a specific limit of CO2 (usually what is more than we need)
  • This sensor gives orders to the vacuum to start sucking up the air
  • Then through a filter which ONLY takes the CO2, it passes to the generator (in which certain formulas are added) to produce an energy.
  • This produced energy goes into turbines which will change into two types of energies: moving or electrical. The latter is sent to the building cable and then sent to other apartments.

Benefits:

  • Financially, it helps in saving USD 2 trillion and Protect 230K lives
  • Environmentally, it also helps reduce ocean acidity and sea organisms by providing pure CO2

Future Development:

  • Teaming the sensor with an app to create an app programmed to keep record on the percentage of people use our alternative plan. This will possibly help governmental sectors and NASA access more data for research purposes.
  • independent website to get the hardware and software products: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B2SfezECyE8iWEZSSVJuTFNXOFU

  • Further plan on utilizing this project on rural areas where electricity is cut off, so we will use regular batteries that are affordable and can power up 2 to 3 weeks.


Resources:

  • Using 3D models to explain the process of using CO2 (3Ds max)
  • Using MG-811 CO2 Sensor Module code

Challenges:

  • Upon implementation, we need to keep in mind that already existing devises in the market are not useful but to consider customizing the sensor, the filter and generator to function the way it is required.
  • To take into consideration the size of the place the sensor is avoiding any miscalculation.
  • To take into consideration having other living creatures that use CO2 like (plants, pets)
  • In case of fire, or smoke, it may react differently.


References

For 3D models & Chemical formulas

For Programming

Others

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SpaceApps is a NASA incubator innovation program.