We are proud to introduce kids to computer programming at the Philadelphia Science Festival (4/20/13) through Scratch, a program developed by M.I.T. For more information about downloading Scratch, visit, http://scratch.mit.edu/. For Scratch for Arduino, visit, http://seaside.citilab.eu/scratch/arduino. For Panther, a versatile variant of Scratch, visit, http://pantherprogramming.weebly.com/ or download it from our Dropbox here.

A 16′x16′ patch of roof is equivalent to 23m, the sun produces 1Kw/meter/day but common modules produce at ~17%. This leaves you with 170 watts per square meter or 3900 watts total. If you consider various inefficiencies you will produce approx 3500 watts AC from that system.

3500 Watts at $7/watt installed is going to cost you $24,500.00. In PA you will only receive the 30% federal rebate and various minor incentives leaving you with approximately $16,000 overall cost. If you pay this over 5yrs compound interest at %8/yr your monthly payment will be ~$330/mo. The modules you install have a GUARANTEED lifespan of 25 yrs and Inverters generally have a 10-15yr lifespan. So after the five years of slightly higher than average payments the modules will be nearly free. They do need to be cleaned once in a while and inverters do occasionally go bad.

The more time you invest in and understand your system the cheaper and more effective it will be. If you have any questions don’t hesitate to email or call me. Good Luck!

Josh

Magazines

• PV Magazine
• Solar Today and American Solar Energy Society (ASES)
• Home Power Magazine
• Mother Earth News
• Solar Pro Magazine

Material Sources

• Fred’s Ebay site
• Micro inverters on Ebay
• Posharp a great site for resourcing materials
• Fazzios in NJ and DE (Not Alt Energy Specific)
• Kill-A-Watt energy monitoring devices on Wikipedia and Google
• E-mon Demon Submeters for commercial applications

Information Resources

• US Department of Energy (DOE)
• National Renewable Energy Labs (NREL)
• PA Solar (PA State)
• PA Renewable Energy and Sustainable Living Festival
• Mid-Atlantic Renewable Energy Association
• Philadelphia Solar Energy Association
• City of Philadelphia Mayors office of Sustainability
• City of Philadelphia PV installation standards
• Northeast Sustainable Energy Association
• Solar Site Surveying Guide (By Build-it-Solar)

Design and Analysis Software

• Sketchup (free 3D design software from Trimble)
• ResCheck (free residential energy compliance software)
• PV WATTS (NREL)
• Appropedia (Appropriate Technology Wikipedia) software links

Do it Yourself (DIY) Alternative Energy

• OtherPower Great DIY wind resource
• Scoraig Wind Leader in DIY wind Turbines
• Build-it-Solar The renewable Energy Site for DIY’ers (Good Links!)
• Alternative Energy Information Center (Tom Elliot)

Documents and Articles

• “My Journey to Energy Neutrality” success story
• Solar PV for Architects and Engineers
• the Energy Efficiency Pyramid on Green Building advisor

East Room Recording asked us to make a Quadratic Resonance Diffuser (QRD) cube for their sound studio. The result is a one-of-a-kind design which was proven by the client to diffuse extraneous sound.The QRD cube contains 31 rows with 31 1/2″ square rods measuring from 4″ to 16″. The design was developed from the client’s parameters and using the QRDude application that determined how the cube would diffuse sound.

We first removed old blades in the hopes of being able to repair them. The dry rot was too extensive for salvage and the construction of prop would not allow for individual blade replacement. After some research we opted for a blank hub and blades from Hoverhawk. The original hub base would not come off so a fully custom adapter bracket had to be made.