Team: PCM United
Phase Change Materials

Over the past ten years, air conditioners have steadily become more efficient; however, keeping people cool in buildings and homes is costly and requires a large amount of energy. Present day methodologies for cooling are responsible for consuming at least one trillion kilowatt hours of electricity each year, and consumers spend $29 billion each year on cooling. Through the recent advancements in nanotechnology, the cooling of homes and buildings have the potential to save an immense amount of energy, and to save consumers a great deal of money.

Team: PiezoPOWER
Piezoelectric Energy Harvesting

Many modern electronic devices are now portable and they constantly need to be recharged due to their high current demand. However, charging these devices require a hard-wired connection to an outlet (or a power bank). It can become difficult, or at times impossible, to charge these devices when one’s not near a power supply. Additional research is required to develop alternate methods to supply energy to these portable devices.

Team: Power Plant
Electronic Plants

Due to the rapid growth of the human population, further developments must be made to efficiently harvest energy. All plants create energy which has the potential to become beneficial if harvested properly. This energy can be efficiently collected with many of th current advancements being developed in science and engineering.

Team: simVRT
Virtual Reality in Education

Most teachers today do a fantastic job teaching students new information and helpful skills that will be useful in the future. Unfortunately, not all students learn the same way and process information as well as other students. In 2006, 4.6 million people in the US were diagnosed with learning disabilities according to the National Institute of Health. Since then, this number has multiplied and it doesn't even include the people who don't have diagnosed learning disabilities but still have trouble learning some concepts through the conventional way of teaching. Our society as a whole suffers when its population is not educated to the highest capability possible for each human. When we don't continue to look for ways to educate our citizens, we are setting them up to be ill prepared to function at higher levels for the rest of their life.

Team: Sunposite
DSSC Research and Development

Due to the information revolution and the apparent climate change effects, people began acknowledging the consequences of fossil fuels and restrictions of using non-reusable energy.  An answer to this dilemma lies in the rapidly developing solar industry, but limitations, such as large expenses, inefficiency, and the lack of proper materials exist. Our research group located in North Penn High School attempts to tackle those frailties by researching new materials that can be used for solar panels, making them more accessible and less expensive to obtain.

Team: Synbionic, Inc.
Synthetic Nerve Research and Development

An estimated 20 million Americans alone suffer from some degree of peripheral neuropathy (PN). The need for a solution to this hindering condition is evident from the sheer number alone of people suffering from peripheral neuropathy. Everyday, hundreds or even thousands of individuals are diagnosed with some form of PN, from diabetic nerve damage, to chemotherapy, to accidents from burns and amputations. Most current methods only treat PN with few being cured from nerve grafts and cell scaffolds for small scale damage. More severe nerve damage cannot be catalyzed into new nerve growth and requires a new method for nerve replacement. Current advances in technology allow us to conceive creating alternative methods to nerve grafts and cell scaffolding.

Team: T.P.S. Energy Systems
Title

The Earth is full of clean, renewable energy opportunities. With the advancement of technology, the world is closer to solely using sustainable energy to power our electrical needs. With high energy demands, non renewable resources are used to quickly supply energy even though it causes pollution. Although clean energy sources do not provide energy as reliably as other methods, it doesn't produce pollution . If the world continues to use fossil fuels and nonrenewable energy, our atmosphere will be filled with chemical waste and pollutants that will ruin our planet. In addition to that, we will eventually have a deficit of power meaning there will be a greater demand for electricity than what is immediately available.

North Penn NASA Research Team
Hydrophobic Polymer Nanofiber Protection
Seawater Nanocoating Experiments

Students in the North Penn NASA Research Team are currently studying the development and testing of hydrophobic polymer nanofibers, a portable electrospinning apparatus for electrical connection protection in space and autonomous vehicles and multiple seawater nanocoating experiments.