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Mendocino, California
The Mendocino High School Science Club began this very ambitious solar hydrogen project in January 2003, and will continue it into 2004. The project is led by electronics/engineering mentor Jonathan Peakall and physical sciences teacher Tobin Hahn. Students meet after school and during lunchtimes to work on the project.
Their goal is to build a robot that can seek sunlight and create its own fuel for its hydrogen fuel cell system, and to do this as inexpensively as possible. It's quite innovative - these students chose the project in part because as far as they could determine, no one else has tried to do this. That's the spirit!
They've tried out various fuel cells, and have settled on a 3-layer convection PEM cell to provide the voltage they need to run a the robot's logic circuits and servos. Fuel pressure is regulated by a stamp which monitors the output voltage and operates a valve that "burps" the cell. So far, with this set-up, they've acheived a run of 62 minutes, drawing 1 amp, on approximately 1.75 liters of H2, which is quite sufficient to run a robot - and they are further refining the system's efficiency.
They have been producing hydrogen with a reversible, single membrane PEM fuel cell, but are considering building an electrolyzer. Most of their focus has been on the power system, so they haven't yet tackled the photovoltaics to power electrolysis, or the robot's sensors. There's lots more about this great project on the
MadLabs website.
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