Solar-powered gizmos and gadgets rule at Earth Day Festival [Solar Schoolhouse Olympics - Imperial Valley]
source: Julian J. Ramos IV Press 2005.04.11

IMPERIAL — At the seventh annual Earth Day Festival at the Imperial Valley Expo on Saturday, there was no shortage of sun and no shortage of gizmos and gadgets running on solar power.

The festival, sponsored by Imperial Valley Regional Occupational Programs and the Imperial Irrigation District and others, featured exhibits, demonstrations, games, live music from the Imperial Valley College music department's Estudiantina and other activities in the Plaza de la Cultura building.

The festival promotes conservation of natural resources, composting and alternative energy use.

Madaleine Macholtz, one of the event's organizers, said many young children attend the event and one day one of them may develop a solution to any energy problem.

"Because we have lots of them," Macholtz said.

Earth Day, celebrated April 22, began in 1970 as a non-partisan event to promote environmental awareness and conservation of natural resources. Since then it has grown into an international event with activities, events and festivals like the one in Imperial County.

Macholtz said the local Earth Day happening began seven years ago as a way for the Imperial Valley Regional Occupational Program to promote non-traditional careers in the environmental field. It's been held at the I.V. Expo since then.

The sun shines brightly on the Valley more often than not and practical use of solar energy was a popular theme at the festival.

Michael Gohl of Niland hasn't paid an electricity bill since 1986.

Gohl, owner of The Sun Works, said his family lives in a 40-foot GMC bus converted into a recreational vehicle fully powered by the sun. He also drives a solar-powered golf cart.

Solar-powered ovens baked biscuits, cooked a turkey and melted cheese on nacho chips at Gohl's display.

The $200 pre-made oven heats at temperatures of 325 degrees to 375 degrees, Gohl said. You can even make your own with a kit.

"We use it all the time at home," Gohl said.

The solar ovens are convenient for camping in areas where cooking with fire is prohibited, he said.

The IID offers rebates of up to a third of the cost of home solar panel installation, Gohl said.

Holtville High School students Karolina Figueroa, 17, and Sonia Herr, 17, both seniors, powered a radio with solar panels attached to an umbrella as a physics class project.

Solar radios are available but costly they said, and a homemade device works just as well.

Five solar panels connected to wires soldered to the battery compartment are enough to create the 12-volts needed to make the radio work, Karolina said.

Earlier experiments fried a radio, she said.

"Too much voltage," Karolina said. "It started smoking and didn't work anymore."

They ended up using physics teacher Eduardo Niebla's radio.

The Solar Schoolhouse, a kindergarten-through-12th-grade solar education program, sponsored competitions for area high school students in solar water fountain and solar home design, solar cooking and solar car races.

Tor Allen, president of the Rahus Institute, the four-year-old Solar Schoolhouse's parent organization, said schoolhouse programs are aimed toward solar power literacy and energy conservation awareness.

Joseph Sanchez, 14, and Sooni Seu, 15, both freshmen at Central Union High School in El Centro, came away with top honors in the solar car races at T.L. Waggoner Elementary School in Imperial. The race car, powered by one 10 and 1/2-inch x 5-inch solar panel and a 3-watt engine, beat the competition from other high schools with a unique balsa wood frame that ran along the middle of the car.

To win, not only did the cars have to go fast, but the design team was judged on innovation of design, artistic expression and understanding of what made the car work. The team with the most points won $500 dollars in solar equipment for their school.

Calipatria High School's solar-powered water fountain design (image at right) caught the attention of many of the hundreds attending the event. Placed near the entrance to the Plaza de la Cultura, the 12-foot-tall abstract structure designed by senior Arely Flores, 17, featured a black metal figure with a solar panel in its right hand. The panel powered a 13-volt water pump that kept 1 to 2 gallons a minute flowing. The panel can be swiveled by a hook to keep the sun's rays hitting it.

Water spouted from the top and cascaded down into a plastic tub with decorative rocks from a series of off-center metal trays.

"I love how it came out," Arely said.

Arely said the project took two weeks to complete and that it could have been done sooner if her team wasn't having so much joy in the construction.

"We goofed around and had fun with it," Arely said.

Central Union High School juniors Alyssa Creiglow, 16, Leticia Garcia, 16, and Patrick Yanni, 17, displayed a 13-inch by 16-inch scale model home cooled by a half-volt solar-powered fan.

The two-story three-room house also featured a Trombe Wall. Patrick said the wall is made of "thermal mass" materials such as stone, tile or cement. The wall heats during the day and the heat can be released at night to warm the house.

The home was built to mimic a 2,000-square foot San Diego area home. Alyssa said the group of geometry students had to determine sun elevation at noon in the San Diego area before designing the energy-saving dwelling

Exhibits inside the hall featured informational booths from the Imperial Valley Waste Management Task Force, Imperial County Public Health Department, New River Wetlands Project and Mesquite Regional Landfill and also activities for kids like making recycled paper, paper sundials and beeswax candles.

Central Union High School geometry teacher Bob Macholtz said the solar power competitions are a way to take principles from trigonometry, scale factors and slope and turn them into something creative like Central's solar water fountain entry.

"It took them a while to take from test to application," he said.

Competitions like the solar car races, solar water fountains and solar home designs were limited to high school students. An essay contest for students in grades four through six and a poster contest in grades seven and eight were also part of the festival and winners were presented prizes for their entries.

Madaleine Macholtz said the theme for the posters was "California's Energy Resources" and essays were based on the theme "Why is Earth Day important."