Introducing solar energy to next generation engineers: Summer camp design and lessons learned
Manoharan, Arun Kaarthick Pandi, Koteswara Rao Aravinthan, Visvakumar
Manoharan, Arun Kaarthick
Pandi, Koteswara Rao
Aravinthan, Visvakumar
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Digitization Date
Issue Date
2025-11-10
Type
Conference paper
Genre
Keywords
Introducing solar technology,K-12 summer camp,Power engineering education,Roof top solar estimation
Subjects (LCSH)
Citation
A. K. Manoharan, K. R. Pandi and V. Aravinthan, "Introducing Solar Energy to Next Generation Engineers: Summer Camp Design and Lessons Learned," 2025 IEEE Power & Energy Society General Meeting (PESGM), Austin, TX, USA, 2025, pp. 1-5, doi: 10.1109/PESGM52009.2025.11225111.
Abstract
K-12 outreach activities such as workshops and camps play an important role in introducing electrical engineering and creating awareness about the trends and avenues to pursue higher education. This is critical, specifically for the power and energy sector to support the workforce development in key areas such as renewable energy and other grid-edge technologies. As such this work presents efforts towards creating engaging activities to inspire future engineers, with detailed illustration of solar summer camp developed by authors for 6th - 12th grade students. This includes a home solar design activity using real solar generation data along with introduction to circuit building with solar cells. The key observation from this experience was the effectiveness of relatable problem formulation to intellectually challenge and engage students in addition to the typical hands-on activities. Other key observations and discussions along with potential future extension are presented in the paper as well. © 2025 IEEE.
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Description
This is an open access article under the CC BY license.
Publisher
IEEE Computer Society
Journal
IEEE Power and Energy Society General Meeting
Book Title
Series
2025 IEEE Power and Energy Society General Meeting, PESGM 2025
2025-07-27 through 2025-07-31
Austin
215402
2025-07-27 through 2025-07-31
Austin
215402
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Archival Collection
PubMed ID
ISSN
19449925