A blowtorch and some solar panels propelled four St. Albert students to science fame last weekend at a local science fair.
Nicholas Silver and Alyson, Wyatt and Jessica Katerenchuk were four of the few students recognized with awards last weekend at the 52nd annual Edmonton Regional Science Fair. The event invited some 300 students from central Alberta to the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology's Edmonton campus to present science experiments on the topics of their choice.
This fair gives students a chance to explore topics of interest, practice public speaking and learn how to use the scientific method in real life, says spokesperson Sue Chapotelle. The top teams also move on to the Canada-wide science fair later this year.
"Every year, I'm always amazed by the incredible amount of work and learning these students produce," Chapotelle says.
Burning questions
Silver received a honourable mention in the Christi Communications Excellence in Communications category for his "Sizzling Siding" exhibit, which involved setting stuff on fire using a blowtorch.
"When I was thinking of ideas," he explains, "there was a fire on the news, and it jumped from house to house."
So, the Grade 7 student at Sir George Simpson decided to test four types of siding to find which one was the most fireproof.
Silver says he built a model wall and covered it with vinyl, cedar, aluminium and cement fibre tiles. Half of the tiles were also treated with a paint-on fire retardant produced by a St. Albert company. He roasted each tile with a propane torch for six minutes and recorded the resulting damage.
Silver says he found that the cement fibre siding was the most fireproof, as it had no damage aside from a bit of cracking. Rock has a very high melting point, he explains, so these rocky tiles do not burn easily.
Vinyl, in comparison, burns at about 80 C – far below the 500 C of the torch – and it didn't last three minutes
"The vinyl was burned through very quickly and damaged the wall," he says, indicating a big black spot on the wall.
He also found that the fireproof coating reduced the amount of damage caused to three out of the four types of siding. The torch burned right through the uncoated cedar siding, he notes, but did not penetrate the coated one. "It's quite amazing." The coating had no effect on the aluminium tiles, he adds, but that could have been due to improper application of it.
Coated cement fibre siding is the most fire-resistant, Silver concludes, but it's also expensive — it costs about $50 per square foot once you account for painting on the coating, he notes, compared to $2 for vinyl.
Solar science
The Katerenchuks did two experiments on solar panel efficiency.
Their family had bought solar panels for their farm, says Jessica, and wanted to find out how to make them more efficient. She and her brother Wyatt, both students at Simpson, decided to test the effects of shading on a panel's performance.
It was a lot bigger than they expected, she says. The panel's power output dropped between 55 and 93 per cent when they covered just one hand-sized cell on the panel with a black board, and dropped to zero when they covered a whole row.
Most modern solar panels are wired in series, Jessica and Wyatt explain, meaning that shading any one cell affects all of them. Engineers are working on parallel-wired solar panels that won't have this problem, Jessica says, but until they create one, owners should make sure that their panels stay shade-free.
Younger sister Alyson, who attends Sir Alexander Mackenzie, says she tested the effects of backgrounds on the panel's performance. "You need more sun hitting the solar panel to create lots of electricity," she says, and she thought the panel's surroundings could direct more sun onto the panel.
Alyson placed one of four backgrounds in front of the panel – brown cardboard, a black garbage bag, white snow and a shiny mirror – and measured its output. The mirror caused the panel to produce the most power, followed by the snow, the cardboard and the bag. Black absorbs light, she says, so panel owners should put their panels against white or reflective backdrops instead of dark ones.
The Katerenchuks received awards from the Alberta Solar Energy Society, the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Alberta and Environment Canada for their work.
The full list of winners is available at www.ersf.ca.
