Greenovation at RIT
A couple of friends of mine have started a new website dedicated to “Greenovation” (http://greenly.tv/). Being RIT students, a decent amount of their content is dedicated to programs/projects happening here at RIT. I know I don’t keep up with as much of these kinds of projects as I would like, so it is going to be nice to be able to follow it. I strongly suggest you check it out.
Also, if you follow my blog, you have probably read about the wind-powered wifi repeater my friend Dan Lampie installed on campus at RIT last spring. RIT administration decided to take it down after the Imagine RIT festival, so he has been trying since the fall of this year to reinstall it in a better location. A few weeks before Christmas he finally got all of the permission he needed and I again helped him set it up. We probably couldn’t have picked a worse day to install the turbine (in the middle of a blizzard). However, it went quite well. About a week ago, disaster struck. Well, not really. The only stakes we were able to get were no more than about a foot in length. Due to the nasty weather conditions last week, one of the stakes was ripped out of the ground and the turbine fell over, snapping one of the blades as it fell to the ground. So, Dan asked RIT Facilities Management Services (FMS) to provide us with some better stakes. The stakes out there now are 6 feet long and, barring a hurricane/tornado, are not going anywhere. So, now that the wind turbine is up and running again, he has ordered a new omni-directional atenna, some bigger batteries, and a solar pannel so that the batteries will still charge on non-windy days. He has a bunch of great ideas on what to power with the turbine, so I am really looking forward to seeing what comes out of it. I’m also going to help him out with some monitoring circuitry (a microcontroller to monitor current/voltage/power). More information on his turbine is available on his website.
