The PS 57 FLL Robotics Team & the Jr Robotics Team 2009 “Solar Powered Smart Moves”

Energy Today Vehicles and machines using gas and oil burn fossil fuels. Electricity to run buildings and some machines comes from power plants which also burn fossil fuels. These fuels are both costly and pollute the environment.

Some Electric Company Power Plants burn these damaging fossil fuels day after day…Con Edison on Staten Island cares about the environment and shut down their power plant in They also invest in many community environmental projects including Eibs Pond across the street from the school.

Fossil Fuels from power plants, vehicles and oil burning machines Affect Climate Change. Increased co2 (carbon dioxide) causes the temperature to rise (Green House Effect)

Fossil Fuel pollution causes: Flooding Hurricanes Tornados Tsunami’s Drought Asthma Global Warming Wars

Our Teams went on a trip to the Solar One Museum The Solar One building in NYC obtains its electricity and heat from solar energy. During our trip there our team built model solar cars to prepare for our Robotics tournament.

Solar Design When excess power is generated from the PV solar panels on the roof, a bank of batteries stores the electricity for use at other times. The electricity to run this building is basically cost free.

Eibs Pond Park across the street from PS 57 plans to “go green” using solar powered machines, vehicles and buildings in the future

We used Renewable Energy Kits to plan for Eibs Pond

Eibs Pond presently uses a Gas powered tractor

Solar Truck This model truck can be used to replace our tractor which cuts weeds and carries equipment. The energy stored in the solar powered capacitor would be cost free and prevents air pollution.

Solar Energy machines Eibs Pond can use solar powered watermills. Moving water will reduce the amount of mosquitoes carrying the West Nile Virus. Solar powered windmills can also be used to cut energy costs. A solar powered Ferris wheel would be fun too…

Solar Cars and Scooters Eibs Pond can actually use solar cars and scooters to carry materials too. Energy to run these scooters would be stored in portable battery packs.

We plan to build this trike to deliver wood chips to the nature paths at Eibs pond this school year

Plans to build the trike can be found at Trike/

Congressman Mc Mahon has invited us to Washington to present our solar trike project upon completion

Our plans can actually work If the Parks Department and Solar One agree to transfer their solar building to Eibs Pond Park after building Solar 2. If PS 57 receives science funding, we can purchase materials to build a solar scooter, truck, watermill, windmill etc.. for the park. If Eibs Pond Education Program continues to raise funds to run these projects.

We also researched various solar powered cars, boats, planes, bikes etc. We created a separate powerpoint highlighting these vehicles

Research links also provided information on actual solar bike and car races for Middle / High School and college students

This may be us in the future! These two solar vehicles, produced by Honda were made to compete in the world solar challenge an event which sees solar racers compete in Australia every year.world solar challenge