In the spring of 2024, I took ME 2310 “Design of Elements” with Professor Dryver Huston, where the final project was to design a “green machine”. I worked with Louis Chailleux, Lyle Cordes, and Charles Dubrule to design a system for solar panels mounted on ski lift towers. This project was a great experience in practical engineering design, where the team used a mix of SolidWorks FEA analysis and hand calculations to determine the final design. The novelties of the design were the reversed set of solar panels and the breakaway safety mechanism.
The reversed set of solar panels were in place to capture light reflected off of the snow. It was exciting to the team to learn a few months later that double sided solar panels that collect light reflected from the earth are starting to rise in popularity.
The breakaway safety mechanism was implemented in the design to account for safety concerns about snow accumulation. If the weight of the snow reached a certain limit, a sacrificial piece of plastic would break and cause the solar panels to swing on a designed hinge, clearing the solar panel and removing the dangerous load of snow.
Michael Beske-Somers 