Years 12-13 finalists
PA Raspberry Pi Awards 2023
This year, we challenged students to develop ingenious solutions in response to the theme: accelerating energy transition.
Out of the many innovative submissions by teams around the country, here are the finalist projects from years 12-13 students:
Carbon Cap from Altrincham Grammar School for Girls
Saving energy in the home
Carbon Cap is a software product designed to help homeowners reduce their carbon footprint by providing a one-stop-shop for energy sustainability. One of the main features of Carbon Cap is its ability to profile homeowners and gamify the energy-saving process. Carbon Cap uses data from smart meters to create a profile of the homeowner's energy usage. The software then creates energy-saving advice that is tailored to the homeowner's energy usage profile. This advice is designed to be manageable and engaging, making it easier for homeowners to reduce their energy usage.
HydroHeat from Fulford School
Generating revenues while reducing your carbon footprint
HydroHeat has developed a solution that enables small businesses to generate revenue whilst reducing their carbon footprint as well as making substantial savings on heating costs. Our working prototype features a small community swimming pool that has an on-site cloud computing data centre represented by a Raspberry Pi web server. Our prototype uses a solar panel to power the data centre and to extract the heat, redirecting all of that energy to heat the swimming pool. Our solution could distribute small data centres around the country with each one being powered by sustainable sources. All of the heat generated could then be repurposed to benefit social enterprises such as community swimming pools, which could then generate revenue by renting premises to data hosting companies as well as saving on their own heating bills.
JaVelin from Richard Hale School
Evaluating cost benefits from solar panel usage
To help accelerate the transition to renewable energy, our product, Solar X, envisions a brighter future for generations to come. By implementing new technologies, we have unlocked a capability to enable the user to sense the light which hits a given surface area and assign this a value based on brightness. Using our innovative complex algorithm, we can accurately predict the Return on Investment (ROI) you can achieve by installing solar panels with adjustable dimensions depending on the scale of your roof, consequently encouraging the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy in a move that makes the user feel in full control.
Smart Pingu from Barking Abbey School
Reducing energy bills in the home
The Smart Pingu device is our solution to help accelerate energy transition and decrease energy bills by encouraging users to keep Pingu (the penguin) away from heat and anything that produces energy. The Smart Pingu device takes advantage of temperature and humidity sensors connected to a Raspberry Pi to determine whether the heating in a home is turned on. As heating systems use loads of energy, Smart Pingu can then use the temperature sensor to encourage the user or users nearby to keep the room temperatures low by turning off the heating.
Team Alpha from King Edward VI Grammar School, Chelmsford
Reducing the environmental impacts of water pollution
Through our initial research and ideas, we decided to construct a means by which you can reduce the environmental impacts of water pollution, specifically oil pollution. To do this, we would build a boat which can release a dispersant when it detects an oil spill to break down the oil and prevent it washing up on shores or remaining in the water for long enough to have a majorly detrimental impact. Additionally, being small and mobile, the boat would be able to reach spills in the ocean or in rivers inland where oil from oil extraction processes has leaked into the water sources.
Team PANIC from Cardiff High School
Extending the range of electric vehicles
For society to adopt sustainable technologies, we must solve the biggest problems facing them, and make them more desirable. In the context of electric vehicles, we considered one issue in particular: range. Our team name, PANIC, stands for Pathfinding Automobile Network of Induction Charging. The idea involves the use of wireless charging to transfer power to vehicles, which reduces the hours spent stationary using normal charging points. Initially, we’ll introduce wireless capability at common stopping points like traffic lights or parking spaces. However, this could eventually be expanded to entire motorways. Dedicated EV lanes, providing constant power, would allow cars to travel across entire countries without a single stop.
Explore the rest of the competition
