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Engineering, math.

All coming up right now on Alabama STEM Explorers.

Hi, welcome to Alabama STEM Explorers.

I Mitch we're here today at Chickasaw High School with Mr. Bryan Copes.

So tell us what's new with the Life Changers class.

Well, Mitch, I'm excited that you're back.

Matter of fact, it was such an honor to have you here.

You did a story on my high school students with the prosthetic legs earlier.

But now I want to tell you about a story that my eighth grade students are working on right now.

My eighth graders are working on making a solar suitcase.

Now, the purpose of this suitcase is, you know, we teach current events.

You know, my whole thing has been about, you know, teaching the kids how to use their their time and their ability to help others.

You know, we teach them math.

We teach the science.

We teach English.

We've been teaching these core subjects for years.

Yeah, we tell the kids they can change the world, but we never teach the students how to change the world.

So we're using the current event.

Right now there is a war going on between Russia and Ukraine and the Russians are actually bombing the Ukrainian power grid.

And we bring that into the classroom.

And I try to tell the students how that really impacts kids their age.

You know, because the with them bombing the power grid, well, the students go into hiding.

It's kind of like us.

When we went to COVID, we stayed at home and we had to get online lessons.

Yeah, well, I've got a friend of mine that's a teacher over there right now, Alexander Now, Alexander, he's really only got about three students at the moment because, you know, think about where his students and what they're in hiding.

They're refugees in other countries.

Maybe they've been recruited to go to war.

You know, some of he just really doesn't know what happened to them.

But with the Russians bombing the power grid, how do they deliver an online lesson?

Yeah, he's lucky to get power for maybe an hour or two a day.

So it makes recording a lesson and delivering a lesson very, very difficult.

So the students solar suitcase is going to be a solution to that problem.

What this is, it's got a folding solar panel in it that will actually power inverter, that will run a laptop all day and charge cell phones.

That's really cool.

So so how does a solar panel fold?

How can you make that?

Well, this is actually one that was made for people in the hiking industry.

So I just opens up here and it's got several different smaller panels.

Oh, wow.

That's crazy.

So that's how this particular unit works.

That's so like, how much energy can that make?

This particular one will produce 100 watts.

That's that's really cool.

So I see a lot of other things in this box here.

Tell me about that.

Okay.

Well, the students have all created this now.

Most all these components can be purchased off at Amazon or Walmart, because our ultimate goal is to make this easy, easy for other schools, other students to replicate.

Because, you know, we're just making one or we're making just a few of them.

We're actually working on our second one right now.

But once we prove that not only it works, we get shipping set up.

We can then teach other schools how to do this.

But the way it works, they have taken a 25 foot extension cord and they've made this for the power cord to hook to the solar panel.

So it connects right up here.

Okay, then the photovoltaic cells here will take the sun's energy.

You'll come in to the controller.

The controller will convert it to basically DC power.

That would that will charge the batteries.

Okay.

And then the DC power will come from the batteries into the inverter to where it will run laptops or charge cell phones or whatever is needed.

That's really cool.

So, like, tell me about like how the energy in these like, are different all like USA.

As far as the power grid, I think is what you mean here in the United States and into Latin America, we have got 120 power that we plug our our computers and our devices into.

But much of the world doesn't operate on 120 power.

They actually operate on 220, which is kind of twice our power.

So we have to make sure that we are sending the proper inverter.

Now this particular inverter does convert from 12 volt DC to 220 volt AC, and it's also got a universal plug on it because when you're going to 220 volt AC, a lot of times they have a different plug.

So we wanted to make sure that we got the the right inverter to meet their needs.

Okay.

So just to explain in more detail, so what is the process to get energy like?

How do you go through this?

Like, what are the different things that are used?

Well, the scientific part of it, I don't know if I fully understand it myself.

Yeah.

Now we're going to have a group of science students come in here.

Now we've got science students in the science teacher that has done the work to prove that scientifically it works.

Okay.

We also have a math teacher and her students have proved mathematically that it works in my role as a career tech teacher.

My students did the 3D modeling and 3D drawings and they did the 3D printing of the components as well as the fabrication.

Cool.

So have you shipped any of these out yet?

A few years ago I had a group of high school students make one, and we actually sent it to the refugee camp in northern Kenya.

Okay, that's cool.

So, like, how many are you going to try to ship out to the Ukraine?

Well, it depends on how many schools we can get involved in this, because when you start thinking about how many students, how many students, how many teachers are in Ukraine, how many people would be in need of this?

A lot.

A lot.

So, you know, there's no limit.

You know, we want to get as many of these to the people that can use them.

And how long does it take to make one of these?

Well, the the most of the legwork has been done because my students have created a spreadsheet that list all the components that you need to purchase.

And like I said, most of them will come from Walmart or Amazon places easily to get a hold of.

Yeah.

The components here are 3D printed.

You'll also notice that the student's embossed on here Chickasaw Middle School and Chickasaw, Alabama USA on it.

Because we want people to know you know, where this originated from, but will supply all the STL files to the other schools, the files or the print files.

That way they can print their own will even have it to where the the other schools can emboss their name onto the files.

And when you say other schools, what's your goal?

So like just to get within Alabama or the whole country?

Oh, absolutely.

The whole country, if not beyond our country, even because this is something that can be done here in Alabama.

It can be done in Mississippi.

It can be done in Hawaii.

It can be done anywhere.

Again, the the bigger logistics piece that we have to put together is how do we ship it?

And so we're working through that right now.

We plan on actually shipping that this one this week.

Really?

That's cool.

So how many have you made so far?

This is our first one.

We've actually got a prototype over here on the other table, but this is our first completed unit.

Okay, so like, how many major parts were 3D printed?

Well, the black components you see here, the the battery box and the solar controller holder.

Okay, cool.

So it took the students a little while to take all the accurate measurements to create the models.

But now all that legwork is done to where we just put them on the printers.

And, you know, you can produce a part maybe in a day.

Wow, that's true.

That's really neat.

So so your goal would be to ship all of these to the Ukraine and like what else?

What else is your goal with this?

Well, again, our goal, you know, without intervention, the Ukrainian education system is going to be the next casualty of war, because if students aren't able to receive lessons, if teachers aren't able to deliver lessons, you know, think about what kind of future do these Ukrainians, students, these young people have?

I mean, they don't have access to education like we do.

Yeah, well, these provide any benefit other than, like, schooling was.

Well, you name it.

It will provide benefits, you know, even just keeping in touch with loved ones.

I mean, there's a lot of people displaced because of the war.

Yeah.

Communications difficult.

But this would.

It won't connect you to the Internet, but it will provide power to where you can charge up your your your cell phones.

It will charge up laptops and other small devices like that.

So, you know, can they be used for use by soldiers?

Absolutely.

Yeah.

I'm sure they're going to come up with uses form that we can't even imagine.

And how are you going to ship these boxes to the Ukraine?

Well, we're look at taking them through Federal Express or U.P.S.

and will ship them to New Jersey.

In New Jersey, there is a group called is a company that actually ships to Ukraine and they'll put them in a cargo ship and it will go through a cargo ship because we found out that it's very difficult to ship these by air.

Now, I wish we could figure that out because if we get shipping by there, they can get there quickly.

If they've got to go by, cargo ship is going to take a while.

But because these are batteries, not the batteries did ship to us from Amazon.

Right.

But because these are batteries in here, this considered dangerous goods.

Okay.

So then you have to go through a whole different process of repackaging these to where they can be placed on aircraft.

Okay.

And so like how many different devices because like one of these sort of like how much energy could hold where the math students will come and talk to you more about that.

But again, a lot of it a lot of it is depending on your budget, is 100 watts.

Now we know the budgets are 100 watts, but it's charging up to large batteries.

So will power more than one computer at a time?

Absolutely.

Now, will it do it for a sustained time?

No.

Okay.

I think one computer, it will power 24 hours.

Really?

That's what I think.

So now I would miss Schafer here, and she's one of the science teachers here at the school.

So tell me just about like the overview of the science components in this thing.

So a few things that goes into it is me and my sixth graders, we had to start with testing the solar power.

How much energy are we getting and how long is it going to last?

How much is it going to actually charge the laptops and be able to handle?

So we had to start with that for the first process.

So it took a little bit making sure that the power is on, that the numbers are matching the solar charger controller and that the batteries go in.

And we found out some pretty interesting information.

So we know on a sunny day that it's going to fully charge everything 100% the entire day.

No problems for the laptops and the phones can run overnight on an overcast.

They were reduced a bit by half on that, which was a worry for us because in the Ukraine you're looking at a lot of bombings and a lot of smoke and things that are happening that's going to affect the weather there.

So the last thing we want to do is send something that's not going to work for them.

Yeah.

So we ended up leaving this outside.

We've left it through all types of weather.

I'm sure somebody who's walked on it that shouldn't have.

And that's what we did for our science of it is to just get dirty with it and just treat it as if we didn't care about it.

So that way things happen.

You're on the run.

If you have to leave a subway, you can pack this up and do what you need to do.

So, like on a completely sunny day, like how long would it take to charge?

Fully charge.

So actually, amazingly, we put it up during first period.

Our classes are about 15 minutes long and the laptop was fully charged within 50 minutes.

Wow.

That's amazing.

Yeah.

And then on, like, an overcast day, how long would it take?

It took about 3 hours.

Okay.

So about three quarters more to do it.

But we did get by third period, so about 3 hours and plugging it up, we ended up with a fully charged laptop.

Yeah.

So tell me about like the system of, like how it works its way through and creates the energy.

So the solar power, which is amazing, it comes through here, it actually charges these batteries first.

And so an interesting thing that we learned with these batteries is that when they die, these the power inverter and the solar charge actually it takes them a while.

They got to charge the batteries up fully before we can use this on this part.

So what kind of batteries are they?

So are they like bigger batteries were created by Mr. Copes, his kids.

Okay.

So they actually create it with the batteries together.

And then we had the electrical work done by them.

So my full part on it, science wise, the coach didn't know was how are we going to test this and how are we going to make sure it's capable and how are we going to write the science of it?

And my kids are actually working on a scientific paper.

Wow.

Print and have published on the data that they're doing on that.

That's really cool.

So, so you test the solar panels.

How many times did you test them?

Once for each.

We actually tested it two weeks.

We tested it seven times a day.

So I have a student that's in first period, second period, third period, every period of the day they went in, they took the numbers off the inverter.

So we have a battery output here and you have a numbers here for the solar charger controller.

What you really want with this is that the numbers to be matching so that this is getting the input from the solar panel and this is converting it.

This is changing the power over to something we can use.

And so you want the numbers to be matching fairly well on that.

And they did an amazing job as well as putting an international outlet here.

Yeah.

So it can fit different plugs.

So but without the batteries, none of it is going to work for a very long time.

If you add the batteries, you turn the solar panel off, you lose everything.

So after the batteries, where does the power go?

So it goes from the batteries and the solar charger charges.

The batteries and all of the inverter is actually doing is changing it into a usable energy.

So Sun is a very usable energy.

It's just not going to plug your cell phone into the sun.

Yeah, you need to turn it into an energy that we can actually use and that is what our solar power inverter is doing.

This is the the power part.

This is just changing the solar energy to the battery.

This is changing it to electricity we can use.

Yeah, that's really.

And so now we're with Trace and the sixth grader class.

Who do you have with you today?

Of my classmates, Liam, Desiree Majerus and Hayden Reed.

Oh, cool.

So what did you guys have to do with this project?

We've been collecting data on the power outage and input it has on the computer.

Yeah, so, like, tell me about, like, what you want you guys have to do to collect that data and stuff every day and every at the sort of every period we go into a lab, see how many volts and what and what battery is on the computer and write it down.

Okay.

So how often do you do?

Every every period.

So how often is every period of seven days, you know, seven times a day.

Okay, so cool.

So what exactly do you check?

We check the voltage.

Well, the watch and voltage on these two and then the battery on a computer.

That's really neat.

I bet you guys really enjoy helping the students in the Ukraine with working on this project.

We did.

Thank you.

So now I'm with and tell me what you guys do here.

Well, we are the graphers of the solar panel project and we grab all the numbers that this is going to collect about how much time it takes up in a day.

Cool.

So like when you say you graph it, like, how do you do that?

Well, we basically take the numbers that this is going to get and put it into a visual picture.

So it's easier for us to understand, like, how much sunlight it needs to get a full percentage charge.

Okay.

So like, how often do you do that?

Well, I think we do it at like the end of each period, or either maybe we'll do it at the end of the day, will gather some period and do it.

So what does graphing do to like affect it?

Like, how does that how does that give you more information about it?

When we graph the is easier because so we will have a difficult time like understanding the percentages and having all the numbers everywhere.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's, that's neat.

So, so what, how many days you do all five days a week.

Okay.

And so like what, what kind of graph chart does it look like?

Well, it's the simple line graph where sometimes people describe it as it looks like mountains sometimes.

Yeah.

Well, that's really cool.

Thank you, guys.

No problem.

So now when we're Carmen So who are these people with you?

Carmen.

These are the mathematicians.

They help me with this of Christiana.

and Caleb.

Okay, cool.

So what do you guys do as mathematicians?

Well, we are the ones who come up with the data or the solar suitcase.

We record how long the devices take the charge.

We see how many devices could be on there and what have and see how much strength from the sun can power up the suitcase.

Okay, so, like, how can you figure out how long something is charged?

Well, we record it, so we put a phone or two on there at the same time and we'll see.

How long does it take for the phone to charge you?

Cool.

So how can how can you record the power for the sun that you said?

Well, what we do is we give a timer, a clock timer, and we put it on there and we start the timer.

And when the phone goes on to a hundred or however many devices is on the it, it will stop it.

Then we look at how long it'll.

So now we're with Jacob.

So tell me about what you what you do to help with the solar suitcase.

What I do to help with the solar suitcases.

I do paint a 3D printing.

These two 3D printed these two parts.

This is the battery holder for the batteries, two for the solar.

Uh, controller to get the energy from.

Okay.

And 3D printing so it can hold the cord the strings and stuff that goes, yeah, cool.

So how long does it take for something like that to be 3D printed?

It takes two or three days to get printed.

Okay.

And does it work during the night, too?

Oh, yes.

Okay.

So cool.

So cool.

What?

So, like, I see like little names and like the name of the school and stuff on there.

So tell me about how you did that.

Well, we we we used an app called to 3D printers.

We used a text box to spell out Chickasaw, Alabama, USA.

So where they know where they actually come from, because there are many Chickasaw.

So we had to put it down to show it's a specific one.

Cool.

So did you do you have fun working on this?

Yes, I have fun working with just bonding with my classmates, also helping my teacher to be able to build them something great.

Yeah, totally.

Well, thank you.

Yeah, no problem.

Flight fireworks.

Alabama is a learning center that is a partnership between Airbus and the state of Alabama.

I was a teacher for 11 years, and I got my master's degree in STEM education as a science teacher.

For 11 years, I constantly heard students and teachers saying, if I had the more hands on learning experiences, just like what you're teaching, I would probably go far in science or I would keep going with science.

And so what turned me from teacher to director of education is to teach those teachers are to teach the students that come through here that STEM education is important and so is manufacturing, that there are different paths, whether it's college or career.

You have options when it comes to STEM.

There are so many job opportunities when it comes to aviation and when people think of aviation, they automatically think of pilots or flight attendants or jobs like that.

But you have those manufacturing jobs that are behind the scenes where you are actually building these aircraft and you have the opportunity to make the aircraft a different using what you learn.

The most unbelievable thing when it comes to my job is how much goes into making an aircraft I have.

I used to fly all the time, but to actually sit on an aircraft and look around and look at the wiring and the fuselage pieces and everything and the riveting, the fasteners and everything that goes into it, that goes around you, that is probably the biggest.

Wow.

Like I've always thought of aircrafts.

Oh, I know it's a lot to put together, but I didn't know exactly how much it takes an entire world to build an A320.

If a middle schooler came to me and started talking about, Oh, I'm thinking about being an engineer or going into aviation, do it is there is not just one job when it comes to it.

There is multiple engineers and there's multiple things that you can do when it comes to this job, whether it's painting an aircraft or building the aircraft or building parts for the aircraft, we need these fresh minds and fresh skills that come with students.

There's so many wonderful things I love about my job.

I love the fact that it's always different.

It's something new to learn every day, whether it's with aviation or manufacturing or just with the students that come in.

Everybody's always doing something different when it comes to flight works.

Well, thank you so much for you and the other teachers telling me so much about this awesome program that you have.

And someone watching at home wanted to help out in some way.

How could they contact you?

Well, Mitch, thank you for coming in.

But you can actually contact me here at Chickasaw High School.

We're here in Chickasaw, Alabama, just outside of Mobile.

My email address is just be cope sets for Brian Cope so big copes at Chickasaw schools dot com cool.

Well thank you I'll see you next week for another episode of Alabama STEM explores.

If you or your class would like to help by making one of these solar suitcases, please contact Mr. Copes as the email address below.

Thanks for watching.

Alabama STEM Explorers.

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Alabama STEM Explorers is made possible by the generous support of the Holle Family Foundation.

Established to honor the legacy of Brigadier General Everett Holle and his parents, Evelyn and Fred Holle.

Champions of Servant Leadership.