Problem Statement: Since many people in third-world countries suffer from heat from their environment, we need to make an affordable way for them to protect themselves from the heat.
Solution: We will use the sunshield coating from the James Webb telescope to create a shield for the tops of houses in third-world countries. The sunshield coating works by using several layers of Kapton, aluminum and silicon to reflect the suns rays back into space. Our product will be a layer of this material that will be layed over the roof of houses. We hope that this will be able to lower the temperature of the inside of the house without having to use air conditioning.
Criteria: The material needs to make a significant temperature difference inside people's homes, it needs to be affordable for people in third-world countries, and we will need to make the prototype/testing process affordable for an 8th grade budget.
Constraints: We need will not have access to the original technology used in the James Webb telescope, and we will not be able to simulate some houses having insulation and others not.
Testing: As we are 8th graders and did not have the money to buy all of the materials, we used four layers of aluminum foil as the sunshield in our testing. We used a heat lamp to replicate the effects of the sun.
Questions we would ask: How would we make the shield affordable for people in third-world countries? At night, could this be used as insulation to keep the houses warm at night as well?
Credits:
Created with images by Benjaminrobyn Jespersen - "milky way" • O12 - "milky way starry sky night sky"