The document summarizes the Solar House Project conducted by three students. It describes the stages of their project: brainstorming ideas, prototyping the best ideas, building a model solar house, and testing it. Some of the ideas they considered were using a dome, dark insulating fabric, friction-generated heat, or reflecting light off water. Their most developed idea used a magnifying glass on the roof and mirrors inside to spread heat. For their prototype, one test showed a blanket providing warmth. Their final model house was a box made of poster board, foam, and cardboard measuring about 10x10x5 inches, but cloudy weather prevented proper testing of its solar heating ability.

1. The Solar House Project
Documentation
Conducted by Cris Gammill, Jacob Salazar, and Kaitlin Kirkpatrick
Conceptual Physics – 2011- Eastside Prepatory School

2. Stage I : Brainstorming
 In thinking of ideas for our solar house, we probably produced about ten ideas, eliminating them
down to perhaps two. Among these ideas were very basic concepts, like bulky, multi-layered
walls, or a completely black surface. However, on the day we sat around and drew out as many
ideas as we could, we established the base ideas we would move on to use.
 Some of the musings we had; ideas that were fairly vague and that weren’t used were as
follows:
 -Dome: A basic concept we had was to have a dome covering the house, which would
essentially seal it from outside cold, while letting light in.
 -Covering fabric: A basic idea we had to keep heat in was to cover the house with dark, heavy
fabric, the fabric acting as an insulator.
 -Continued friction: A briefly considered idea was to have some source that would continually
generate heat via friction and movement.
 -Circular house: A circular house design, with windows all along the surface, for all the more light
absorption.
 -Water-reflection: This was a vague idea; one not much explored. It’s basically a house design
which uses light reflecting off of water as a source.
 -Magnifying glass house idea: One of the earliest ideas, and by far the most-developed. It
utilizes a magnifying glass on its roof, which would concentrate light into a little beam, as more
concentrated would mean more heat. Inside the house itself would be mirrors to reflect light
around the house, spreading the heat.

3. Stage II : Prototype
 With our Brainstormed Ideas we got from the HMW
questions, we selected “better” ideas from our brainstormed
list. We began prototyping…
 Prototyping Isolation : The first brainstormed idea was our
ideas of insulation. We first tested what we called “the
blanket”. We took a blanket outside and convered a group
members head with the blanket. It was cold outside, which
was just the perfect situation for testing. Our group member
reported back that they were “pretty warm under the blanket.”

4. Stage II : Prototype (Continued)
 Our next idea we prototyped was the “Magnifying Glass
Idea”. We took a magnifying glass and tried to use mirrors to
distribute the heat/light throughout the space we were
working with.

5. Stage II : Building
 We had our final house design planned out, a collaboration of
all our successful prototyping written out on a piece of paper.

6. Stage II : Building
 Using poster board, foam and cardboard, we formed a box
shaped house, measuring to about 10 inches long each
side, and about 5 inches tall.

7. The Final Stage : The Test
 Unfortunately, the weather did not turn out good for the day of
testing. There were only 5 minuets of sun, and the sun being
our only source of energy we ended up at a cringing
temperature of 15 degrees Celsius. In reflection of the
project, our team learned much about heat.