HackMHS’s theme of sustainability is what first sparked the idea for Sunbrero. After brainstorming and researching, we concluded we wanted to do a project relating to solar energy. As a renewable source of power, solar energy has an important role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and mitigating climate change, which is critical to protecting humans, wildlife, and ecosystems. We wanted to bring solar energy to the everyday lives of average people. With this goal in mind, we created a project that could start people on the path of using clean and renewable energy.
Sunbrero allows its user to harness the power of the sun to charge their devices on the go using renewable, clean energy. Our design allows for energy efficient power without losing the style or comfortability of the sombrero itself. In addition, we created a custom website that provides information about the product. After entering the amount of time you used Sunbrero, you can view the maximum amount of energy you saved in watts, the amount of power over time in mAh, and even how many watermelons you could explode with the amount of energy you generate. The Sunbrero utilizes the location of the user to get the UV index of where they are. The UV index is a measure of the level of UV radiation at your location. At a UV index between 3-7, the Sunbrero provides the most energy in a safe manner. Additionally, we interpret the UV index using an online source connecting a UV index and solar energy to estimate the maximum amount of solar energy you can produce at the given time of day.
For the website, we used a combination of HTML, CSS, and Javascript to create an aesthetic, yet effective website. We wanted to keep everything in one page to maintain simplicity with file organization. The HTML provided the structure of the site and laid the groundwork for the JS and CSS. We utilized Javascript for the data calculations on the website, as well as its API calling ability to get the UV index at a specific location and time. Finally, by utilizing CSS and Bootstrap, we cleaned up the design making it more cosmetically appealing. To publish the website, we utilized github. For our physical product, we utilized a low profile, yet high power solar panel (which is also weather-resistant) and wired it to a usb adapter. We then mounted the system to a very snazzy sombrero and made accessible holes for the phone charger.
The first main challenge we ran into was getting the API call that we would get the UV index from. Many popular weather APIs do not include UV index anymore, and most of the ones that did have those capabilities were either too complicated or not maintained. There were many options we could have used for an API, and after some research, we settled on OpenUV which has both accurate data and a simple implementation. Since we weren't very experienced with advanced web development, we were challenged in implementing Javascript and API calls into our HTML based website. We researched this topic for a few hours and studying javascript itself as well as its interactions with HTML. This research allowed us figure out how to implement the code we wanted into our website.
First and foremost, we learned a lot about solar energy and its benefits from our preliminary research. Solar energy is the cleanest and most abundant renewable energy source available in the world. Many people don't consider solar energy due to its cost, however the benefits far exceed the faults. Not only is the energy clean, but it is so efficient that it will eventually save you money from your energy bill, despite the initial cost. We also learned a lot about wiring solar panels as well as Javascript, CSS, HTML and website development as a whole.
The goal of Sunbrero was to exemplify how easy and cheap it could be to use solar energy in everyday life. We hope that it will inspire people to look into solar energy and save the world just a little bit more energy. Regarding the product itself, we hope to be able to expand the concept to other accessories, such as top hats and umbrellas, so more people could easily generate solar energy on the go! In the future, we aim to make an app using flutter to see how much energy your phone is actually receiving from the sun. Afterwards, we would connect it to the website so the effectiveness of the SunBrero can be visualized!