The Android app development has been going on well for us. As shown in the picture, we have assembled the thermocouple kit along with a wireless transmitter. The probes on thermocouple measure temperature, and the wireless transmitter sends that data to smart phone wirelessly for further calculation of k and h.

For app development, one person has been working closely with the hardware (thermocouple kit). Him and two others have also started programming for the app. While programming is not something we mechanical engineering students are really good at, our coding members have devoted decent amount of time on learning such subject.

Our objectives include four steps: app – solar collector – thermal energy storage – thermaleletric equipment (to generate electricity). Alongside with the app development, we have also started the research on solar collector. Our plan is to buy a small (less than 18 inches in diameter) parabolic solar collector to test the system in a small scale (water, instead of molten slat, will be used in this stage as well for testing purpose). The purchase of the first solar collector should be finished by the end of November 2015.