2008 Winner Profiles
Grand Prize
Customizable Hydrogen Production
Lake Roosevelt High School, Coulee Dam
Catherine Kerns, Elizabeth Owen, Peter Rise
Advisor: Stephen Dent
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The location of your home may make certain types of alternative energy more effective than others. For instance, solar panels are likely to yield more power on a house in the sun than one in the shade. Wind power is easier to generate if your house is perched on a gusty ridge than if it’s protected by hills or trees.
In answering the Imagine Tomorrow Design Challenge, the Grand Prize-winning team demonstrated how multiple alternative energy sources could be combined to generate clean hydrogen power for a home—regardless of its geographic location.
The students built miniature, working models of a solar panel, a hydroelectric generator, and a wind belt generator. Individually or together, these power sources ran an electrolyzer that the students built to produce hydrogen. To show hydrogen power in action, the team also built a hydrogen fuel cell that powered a small motor.
As they worked on the project, each team member developed a particular area of expertise. For instance, one student focused on creating a working model of the wind belt, and even sought assistance from a researcher in Hong Kong who was developing the technology.