Turn light into computation
Almost all energy we use comes ultimately from the sun, so it is appropriate to focus on solar power in an energy class. Usually when people say “solar” they mean photovoltaics – the conversion of light into electricity via special materials (as distinct from solar thermal, which captures the heat from the sun, sometimes with concentrating mirrors; solar lighting directs sunlight into interior parts of buildings with mirrors or fiber-optics, etc.).
For this assignment, you will use photovoltaic material to convert light into electricity, which you may use directly or store in a capacitor or battery. Building on the kinetic project, we increase the complexity of the goal by requiring that the light-derived electricity power computation of some kind. This could be simple – an ATTiny can be run directly off a small solar panel – or more complex, like a single board computer or larger item. The non-digital “computations” of things like BEAM robots count here for computation. You will need to size your solar and storage (if you use it) accordingly.
Creating solar projects can be expensive, and testing them can be difficult. ITP has a few resources for helping with PV projects and testing, and you will be rewarded with a better understand of a key technology transforming energy around the world.
Work individually or in groups of up to three. Presented in class in Week 9, March 28.
For this project, I worked with my partner, Oliver Yuan.
https://itp.nyu.edu/physcomp/labs/lab-bluetooth-le-and-p5-ble/
https://happycoding.io/tutorials/p5js/for-loops/vertical-gradient