Woodgrove Solar Fountain at the MOE ExCEL Fest 2010

On Saturday, 6 March 2010, a team of teachers and students conducted a presentation on the Woodgrove Solar Fountain at the MOE ExCEL Fest held at Suntec City. The team comprised the following members:

Teachers (Science Department):

· Mr Flavian Fernandez

· Mr Aaron Cheng

· Mr Jerry Tai

· Mr Ernest Ng

· Mr Wee Ngai Shen, Yisen

Students:

· Yap Ying Ying – 4E1

· Douglas Yong – 4E3

· Sabrina Yaccob – 2E2

The project was a largely student-directed project and it involved setting up a photovoltaic module at the front of the school to power the school fountain. The teachers shared with the public, the processes involved in designing, implementing and evaluating such a project. The products and outcomes of the project were also showcased during the presentation. These included the photos of the photovoltaic module itself.

The students, on the other hand, shared their personal experiences in designing the project and transferring their knowledge to their juniors or peers. Overall, the presentation was reasonably successful as positive verbal feedback was received from educators and members of the public at the end of the session. We are looking forward to receiving formal feedback from the ExCEL Fest organizing committee in the near future.

Speech by Ms Grace Fu, Senior Minister of State, Ministry of National Development and Ministry of Education, at MOE Excel Fest 2010 on Friday, 5 March

Excerpts of speech in which Woodgrove Secondary Solar Water Fountain was commended:

"... This year’s ExCEL Fest theme, ‘Every Child Ready for the World’ therefore aptly captures this challenge for us. In fact, our recent preoccupation has been with equipping our students with a creative mindset and skills which are required for the future. This has been the driver for many recent initiatives such as IT Masterplan 3, Teach Less Learn More and the Curriculum 2015 project.

Under this year’s broad theme of ‘Every Child Ready for the World’, we have identified 4 areas of focus that showcase our recent efforts to prepare our students for the future. These are

• This is IT!
• Learning out of the box
• On your mark, get ready… Go global; and
• Character Plus

Each of these areas is exemplified by the school exhibitors and Classroom Experience presenters who have worked very hard to showcase their innovations at this year’s event ...

... In the second sub-theme, ‘Learning out of the box’, Science and Design & Technology teachers of Woodgrove Secondary School developed a project that allowed students to apply conceptual knowledge to a real-life problem. When faced with the possibility of changing the electrically-powered school fountain into a solar-powered one, teachers exploited the opportunity by creating an authentic learning experience for a group of Secondary 3 and 4 students. Students were tasked to design and assemble a solar-powered module. They partnered with lecturers from Temasek Polytechnic and project managers from the industries. The project resulted in long-term energy savings for the school and the students also assisted teachers in the development of a lesson plan on the use of solar power. This will be implemented in lower secondary classes this year to raise awareness about the need for alternative energy sources.... "

Peer Teaching: A Student's Perspective

Between 9 to 20 February, student representatives from each of the Secondary 2 classes conducted a one hour solar water fountain lesson package to their respective classes.

In doing so, the lesson became a platform for student-led teaching and learning. The presenters developed better communication skills. At the same time, the student audience gained a deeper insight into solar technology. Students also showed a greater awareness of Woodgrove's effort to go "green".

Below are some of their thoughts....

Training Session with Student Presenters

From each of the Secondary 2 classes, four students were selected to conduct peer teaching of the solar water fountain lesson package.

Sharing Session with 2E2

This is the first activity, where a solar panel is used to light up a light bulb. Douglas is showing the class how to do it.






Some of the students are trying out the experiment.








Activity 2:
This activity involves a field trip to the Solar Fountain. Here, the students are taught about the Solar Fountain. Leon is currently teaching about the different switches.






Given three scenarios: Sunny day, cloudy day and at night, what will happen to the height of the Fountain? This is a demonstration on a cloudy day, using an umbrella as the cloud.






Here, the students are contemplating about a question which Leon posed to them. This question involves some calculation.







Back to the class! The students are shown the blog with Mr Flavian telling them about the blog.

Training on Operations & Maintenance of Solar Water fountain

Jouney to setting up the Solar Panel





We were briefed by Grenzone's Mr Teo
on the basic operations and maintenance
of the Solar Water Fountain.

Mr Teo explaining to us the various parts of the Solar Water Fountain, such as the control panel, water pump and battery module.

Delivery & Testing of Solar Water Fountain System

Jie Lun helping to arrange the tiles on the muddy ground	Mr. Teo and Mr. Tai checking on the water pump underneath the "Ming Dynasty" vase.
Look how dirty our fountain is! Algae were at the filter inlet and at the base of the fountain. We ought to do some cleaning!	Mr. Teo and Mr. Tai having a discussion
Amorphous silicon used as our photovoltaic cell.	Our stand-alone PV system: the box at the bottom is for the storage of battery.
Charge controller for the solar system

Prototype Development #4: Arrival of the actual prototype

Crystalline solar cell used to power the prototype.	Close-up of our mini fountain!
Can you spot our school logo?	Our prototype is protected by an acrylic case.

Light Intensity Testing: Raw Data & Plotting of Results

Team members: please comment on the above results and your experience on measuring the sunlight intensity during different times of the day.

Prototype Development #3: Scale Model

Prototype Development #2: Research & Ideation

RESEARCH DESIGH

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IDEATION

Prototype Development #1: Site Survey

A site survey was conducted to develop the prototype. Measurements were taken to come up with a scale model.

measuring of the sunlight intensity

	Due to the rain, Harith is standing in the shelter to measure the sunlight intensity.	The fountain that we are working on.
Side view of the fountain	Jasmine Chen checking if the bubble in the tripod is in the centre.	Harith using the solar meter to measure the intensity of sunlight.
Harith is trying to adjust the angle for the board to be tilted.	Xin Quan and Harith adjusting the stand, before the start of the test.	Irfaan and Jasmine Soo calibrating the solar meter for measurement.
The bubble should be in the centre of the green liquid. It is to check if the stand is horizontally stable.	The clinometer is used to measure test what angle of elevation absorbs the most amount of sunlight intensity.	The direction is pointing North.

it has been a week since the training we last had.
now, we had completed the test on the light intensity.
but we had not plot the graph.
i guess we will be doing it this coming week.
it is hard for us to take the readings as the weather has not been good enough.
it started raining since the first day of our project which is 24th March.
the problems we faced during this activity:
on the first day, the battery of the camera could not sustain till the end
secondly, on the second day the red board came off the stand
we could not find replacements for our activity as most of us have busy schedules (e.g NAPFA test)