when I visited my grandparents home in
India we experienced a lot of power
outages and these power outages
inconvenience us in our phone and laptop
usage when we needed these devices the
most on the other hand we had abundant
access to hot water because of these
overhead water tanks that were directly
heated by the Sun now this is possible
because of the warm and tropical climate
in India so as I was observing this
current problem of power of power
outages and I was thinking about this
common resource of hot water I started
to research how we could harvest this
thermal energy from the hot water in
order to produce usable electricity and
this is when I learned about
thermoelectric generators thermoelectric
generators also called te G’s are these
small square devices where if you put a
heat source on one surface of the TEG
and a cold source on the other surface
of the TEG then the temperature
difference will allow for electricity to
be produced not to understand this
better I want you to think about a
battery a battery has a positive side
and a negative side now replace the
battery with a te G and replace the
positive side with a hot heat source
that you put on one surface of the TG
and replace the negative sign with a
cold source that you put on the other
surface of the TG and you will see that
this temperature difference will allow
for an electricity to be produced now as
I was learning about thermoelectric
generators I was amazed by the
real-world applications of these devices
such as the radioisotope thermoelectric
generator also called the RTG now the
RTG was developed and researched in
order to power the Voyager space
missions these are te G’s were able to
produce 400 to 500 watts of power to be
able to power these spacecrafts now that
we’ve gotten through the technical
portions of the TEG let’s get on to the
fun stuff the experiments now in this
picture you will see two water
containers one filled with hot water and
one filled with cold water you also
notice that they’re aluminum foil sacks
which are placed in the water containers
and the TE G’s are actually sandwiched
between the aluminum foil stacks I
completed multiple experiments with this
type of setup to analyze how the
temperature difference betwee
the hot water and cold water was
affecting how much voltage and current I
was able to produce now after doing some
analysis I realized that as a
temperature difference between the hot
water and cold water increase the amount
of voltage and current I was producing
also increased after completing this
experiment I was so interested in
looking in into various ways of
increasing the amount of power that I
was producing and this is when I learned
about series and connections series and
parallel connections if you take
multiple te G’s and connect them in a
series connection then the amount of
voltage that you’re producing will
increase and if you take multiple te G’s
and connect them in a parallel
connection then the amount of current
you’re producing will increase now for
example if you take 2 TE G’s and connect
them in a series or parallel Network
then you’ll be able to produce 2 times
as much voltage and current compared to
just 1 T eg the North Carolina State
University was the first source that I
hit upon to learn about the real-world
applications of thermoelectric
generators now this research team was
trying to harvest body heat in order to
produce enough electricity to power our
wearable devices such as your Apple
watch or your Fitbit I understood that
this research team was trying to harvest
our body heat when we’re producing it
the most such as when individuals
exercise and this reminded me of all
those sweaty summer rowing practices
that I always participated in and I was
excited to try this experiment at home
so I took a heat sink whereas my cold
source and a heat sink you typically
find them in computers they’re there to
cool down the electrical parts in a
computer I then took my hand or the body
heat I was producing as a heat source
and sandwich the TEG between my hand and
the heat sink as I was waiting for the
multimeter to measure how much voltage I
was producing I was daydreaming about
how body heat revolutionized our world
and could eventually allow us to power
an entire village as light bulbs only to
realize that my body heat was only able
to power one small green LED light bulb
so as I realized that body heat wasn’t
the best method for producing
electricity I went back to hot water
and cold water but this time I wanted to
power a larger device so I found a toy
train in my home which has four LED
light bulbs and plays Christmas carols
so I conducted an experiment with hot
water and cold water and connected my t
G’s to the setup and then connected this
train to the set of I was able to power
this train for about 40 minutes this was
a huge step in my process with my end
goal because this meant that I was able
to power a train which originally
requires three Triple A batteries with
common resources such as hot water and
cold water after completing this
experiment I was still interested in
investigating other heat sources that I
could tap into for people who didn’t
have direct access to electricity would
have access to and this is when I
thought about fire now whenever our
power goes out in our homes we often
like candles or light fires in our
fireplaces in order to forhe and for
light so I took fire from my fireplace
as a heat source and snow from a cloud
actually outside my home as a cold
source and connected a very similar
system and connected the train once more
now if you look up at the screen you’ll
be able to see the results of the
[Music]
is anyone in the holiday spirit yet I
have to tell you I’ve never listened to
so many Christmas carols after the
holiday was over as I did that day this
was an amazing experiment for me because
I was able to power this train for three
and a half hours just using snow and
fire I was so ecstatic by the results of
this experiment that I wanted to take a
step further and see if I could power a
phone which we use on a daily basis now
a phone requires about four to five
volts which is a much larger required
voltage than what I’ve done in the past
so I completed another experiment but
this time I connected the phone as
opposed to the Train I realized that my
T Gees were not able to produce enough
electricity to power this phone with the
fire and snow as a heat source and the
cold source as the experiment continued
I started to notice limitations in my
experimental setup which restricted the
TEG is from being able to power the
required voltage and current to charge
the phone this is when I decided to take
a step back and first make a better plan
and gather some more materials to make
the most compact and efficient system to
be able to charge these larger devices
but now I know from my past experiments
that maybe I could go back to India one
day and use that hot water in the
overhead water tanks in order to power
my grandparents devices and their homes
when I first started this project I was
not very knowledgeable about
thermoelectric generators but I was
inspired to learn more from my
motivation I knew that this project
could have great impacts reaching
students in New Guinea Africa allowing
them to power their lightbulbs in their
schools people could harvest thermal
energy from fires powering their heart
with a pacemaker when I first heard the
words thermoelectric generator it was
just a month before the science fair and
when I first shared this concept with my
parents they were very skeptical of how
far I would get considering we had a
time limit and we didn’t know much about
these devices but I started with a small
idea and tested this idea with an
experiment I then asked a new question
based off of the results of this
experiment and created a new experiment
testing this question
I let the successes and failures of my
experiments determine the path that I
would take with this project taking this
journey allowed me to realize that you
don’t need expensive equipment or a
fancy laboratory in order to complete
the research all you need is motivation
a problem for potential for impact and
the drive to work hard I see great
potential for this project and I’m very
excited to see where it will lead me
thank you [Applause]
India we experienced a lot of power
outages and these power outages
inconvenience us in our phone and laptop
usage when we needed these devices the
most on the other hand we had abundant
access to hot water because of these
overhead water tanks that were directly
heated by the Sun now this is possible
because of the warm and tropical climate
in India so as I was observing this
current problem of power of power
outages and I was thinking about this
common resource of hot water I started
to research how we could harvest this
thermal energy from the hot water in
order to produce usable electricity and
this is when I learned about
thermoelectric generators thermoelectric
generators also called te G’s are these
small square devices where if you put a
heat source on one surface of the TEG
and a cold source on the other surface
of the TEG then the temperature
difference will allow for electricity to
be produced not to understand this
better I want you to think about a
battery a battery has a positive side
and a negative side now replace the
battery with a te G and replace the
positive side with a hot heat source
that you put on one surface of the TG
and replace the negative sign with a
cold source that you put on the other
surface of the TG and you will see that
this temperature difference will allow
for an electricity to be produced now as
I was learning about thermoelectric
generators I was amazed by the
real-world applications of these devices
such as the radioisotope thermoelectric
generator also called the RTG now the
RTG was developed and researched in
order to power the Voyager space
missions these are te G’s were able to
produce 400 to 500 watts of power to be
able to power these spacecrafts now that
we’ve gotten through the technical
portions of the TEG let’s get on to the
fun stuff the experiments now in this
picture you will see two water
containers one filled with hot water and
one filled with cold water you also
notice that they’re aluminum foil sacks
which are placed in the water containers
and the TE G’s are actually sandwiched
between the aluminum foil stacks I
completed multiple experiments with this
type of setup to analyze how the
temperature difference betwee
the hot water and cold water was
affecting how much voltage and current I
was able to produce now after doing some
analysis I realized that as a
temperature difference between the hot
water and cold water increase the amount
of voltage and current I was producing
also increased after completing this
experiment I was so interested in
looking in into various ways of
increasing the amount of power that I
was producing and this is when I learned
about series and connections series and
parallel connections if you take
multiple te G’s and connect them in a
series connection then the amount of
voltage that you’re producing will
increase and if you take multiple te G’s
and connect them in a parallel
connection then the amount of current
you’re producing will increase now for
example if you take 2 TE G’s and connect
them in a series or parallel Network
then you’ll be able to produce 2 times
as much voltage and current compared to
just 1 T eg the North Carolina State
University was the first source that I
hit upon to learn about the real-world
applications of thermoelectric
generators now this research team was
trying to harvest body heat in order to
produce enough electricity to power our
wearable devices such as your Apple
watch or your Fitbit I understood that
this research team was trying to harvest
our body heat when we’re producing it
the most such as when individuals
exercise and this reminded me of all
those sweaty summer rowing practices
that I always participated in and I was
excited to try this experiment at home
so I took a heat sink whereas my cold
source and a heat sink you typically
find them in computers they’re there to
cool down the electrical parts in a
computer I then took my hand or the body
heat I was producing as a heat source
and sandwich the TEG between my hand and
the heat sink as I was waiting for the
multimeter to measure how much voltage I
was producing I was daydreaming about
how body heat revolutionized our world
and could eventually allow us to power
an entire village as light bulbs only to
realize that my body heat was only able
to power one small green LED light bulb
so as I realized that body heat wasn’t
the best method for producing
electricity I went back to hot water
and cold water but this time I wanted to
power a larger device so I found a toy
train in my home which has four LED
light bulbs and plays Christmas carols
so I conducted an experiment with hot
water and cold water and connected my t
G’s to the setup and then connected this
train to the set of I was able to power
this train for about 40 minutes this was
a huge step in my process with my end
goal because this meant that I was able
to power a train which originally
requires three Triple A batteries with
common resources such as hot water and
cold water after completing this
experiment I was still interested in
investigating other heat sources that I
could tap into for people who didn’t
have direct access to electricity would
have access to and this is when I
thought about fire now whenever our
power goes out in our homes we often
like candles or light fires in our
fireplaces in order to forhe and for
light so I took fire from my fireplace
as a heat source and snow from a cloud
actually outside my home as a cold
source and connected a very similar
system and connected the train once more
now if you look up at the screen you’ll
be able to see the results of the
[Music]
is anyone in the holiday spirit yet I
have to tell you I’ve never listened to
so many Christmas carols after the
holiday was over as I did that day this
was an amazing experiment for me because
I was able to power this train for three
and a half hours just using snow and
fire I was so ecstatic by the results of
this experiment that I wanted to take a
step further and see if I could power a
phone which we use on a daily basis now
a phone requires about four to five
volts which is a much larger required
voltage than what I’ve done in the past
so I completed another experiment but
this time I connected the phone as
opposed to the Train I realized that my
T Gees were not able to produce enough
electricity to power this phone with the
fire and snow as a heat source and the
cold source as the experiment continued
I started to notice limitations in my
experimental setup which restricted the
TEG is from being able to power the
required voltage and current to charge
the phone this is when I decided to take
a step back and first make a better plan
and gather some more materials to make
the most compact and efficient system to
be able to charge these larger devices
but now I know from my past experiments
that maybe I could go back to India one
day and use that hot water in the
overhead water tanks in order to power
my grandparents devices and their homes
when I first started this project I was
not very knowledgeable about
thermoelectric generators but I was
inspired to learn more from my
motivation I knew that this project
could have great impacts reaching
students in New Guinea Africa allowing
them to power their lightbulbs in their
schools people could harvest thermal
energy from fires powering their heart
with a pacemaker when I first heard the
words thermoelectric generator it was
just a month before the science fair and
when I first shared this concept with my
parents they were very skeptical of how
far I would get considering we had a
time limit and we didn’t know much about
these devices but I started with a small
idea and tested this idea with an
experiment I then asked a new question
based off of the results of this
experiment and created a new experiment
testing this question
I let the successes and failures of my
experiments determine the path that I
would take with this project taking this
journey allowed me to realize that you
don’t need expensive equipment or a
fancy laboratory in order to complete
the research all you need is motivation
a problem for potential for impact and
the drive to work hard I see great
potential for this project and I’m very
excited to see where it will lead me
thank you [Applause]
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