DSB International School, India |

Putting Pressure on Clean Energy

We are delighted to share a blog written by Generate 4 Generations, students at DSB International School who are part of a team delivering a Global Goals project for the 2018-19 Global Goals Competition.

Their project is among over 620 social action projects currently running as part of the GSL movement and we are excited to be supporting them to design and lead positive social change in their community. 

Our knowledge of science and the needs of our city helped us create a sustainable and easy to implement solution.

Project Overview

Our team lives in Mumbai, India. This means that we are all too aware of the overcrowding and vast movement of traffic of people which occurs during rush hour. This produces a net negative to society, as more and more people become late for work, and more time is wasted for everyone involved. However, one of us realized that with so many footsteps in such a short amount of time would cause great pressure onto the ground.

Some of us were studying energy in our Physics lessons in class, which made us realize that we could harness this to produce energy. This is where we have discovered, and decided to work on using pressure-sensor sheets, which uses the piezoelectric effect to generate clean energy. This was also inspired by the fact that Mumbai has a large carbon footprint from multiple sources, so we are facing the city’s need for a cleaner source of energy. We have already created a model sheet which can be used to generate energy from pressure.

Our Journey

We have learned the valuable skill of time management, as the whole team is doing the IB Diploma, which is time consuming and deadlines must be met. This is why we always made sure to communicate to each other perfectly, through weekly meetings, where everyone knew what their job was. Furthermore, handling the appropriate equipment and following safety procedures, as laid out to us by our Design and Technology and Physics teachers, made sure we all were handling the electronics carefully.

If one wire was out of place, the whole system could have fallen apart, leaving us with restarting the whole project once more. Making sure the system ran properly was also due in part our research into the topic of electricity and power generation. This revealed to us the importance of team coordination, performing preliminary research, and planning our project. If any of these ideals were not met, the whole project could not have been completed.

The Next Chapter

We would say, to those that may do projects similar to ours, that it is critical for our generation to look towards cleaner forms of energy and where they be most easily and practically applied. Whether that be locally, nationally, or globally, our ever-warming planet requires the desperate attention of those with the ability to help it. Whether that be lowering carbon emissions or finding more sustainable production practices.

This is why, as a team, we all agree that if anyone of our age decides to take part in a similar project, we would urge them to do so. These projects not only help those that take part become better team members, and more globally conscious, but it also gives them a chance to provide a real long-term aid towards our planet.

The 2018-19 GSL Global Goals Competition is now open and runs until June 2019. If you belong to one of the 700+ teams of students currently delivering a social action project as part of the competition we would love to hear from you and feature your blog and project photos on our website to inspire others.