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Killer Watts Team: Nick Brubaker, Tristan Davolt, Sheila Ghorbani-Elizeh, Priyanka Makin, Jonathan Peterson, Shaylah Wood
Project Origin: Texas Instruments

Texas Instruments’ Robotics System Learning Kit (TI-RSLK) allows students to learn about a variety of electrical concepts through designing and building their own robots by making use of components from the kit and an online curriculum. Currently, the system runs on rechargeable lithium ion batteries that must be plugged in overnight to charge. Unfortunately, this limits the functionality of the robot, since daily charge sessions are a hassle and even infeasible in some applications. There is also currently not a TI curriculum that covers solar power charging and power electronics in general. The TI-RSLK Solar Charging System is a station that the TI-RSLK can autonomously locate and navigate to in order to dock and charge its batteries. It is a product that is used to teach, learn, and practice solar energy harvesting, power electronics, and battery charging and management. This product is needed by three key users. Texas Instruments wants the Solar Charging System to expand the curriculum and parts of its TI-RSLK educational kit to cover the concepts of energy gathering, power management, and solar harvesting. Professors at universities desire the Solar Charging System because they can use it to teach the previously mentioned power concepts. University students need the Solar Charging System to learn about these power concepts through a hands-on application. This product benefits the company that makes the complete kit, the professors that use it as a teaching tool, and the students that learn from building and using it. A unique aspect of the Solar Charging System is the teaching end-goal. It is a modularly designed and extensively documented product that lends itself to teaching. Additionally, the system is a relatively low-cost solution that could be purchased for entire classes and reproduced by educators and students. Ìý