Week 9

Week 9 our team met up to mainly go over what we would be presenting in the final week. We also found that doing a mathematical simulation was more sufficient than doing one using an animation tool. Our solution report was finally completes and completely resourced and cited, and many of our Original engineering questions posed in week one have finally been answered fully.

Week 8

Week 8 we assembled as a team to complete our solution report. This was important to do together so we could read over each others findings in order for the team to have an understanding as a whole. Also John has continued to work on creating a simulation to show how the structure will react to forces underwater. Another possible energy source for the habitat was discovered in underwater current turbines. Because the structure is only at a depth of around 50 ft it will still be subjected to rip currents and so having underwater "wind" mills would be an extremely plausible way of providing the habitat with energy.

We also met to finish the model and test it by submerging it in water to give a nice aesthetic for our final presentation.

Week 7

This week a new problem arose that we found essential to include in our final solutions. How was the habitat going to receive energy? For this we looked at the processes that were already going to occur in the habitat. We found that since we would be splitting molecules of water in hydrolysis, we could receive a large amount of energy from reuniting the hydrogen and oxygen. Also we would be creating freshwater and putting it into a flow of salt water. This combination can also create energy due to the water moving along the salt concentration gradient. This process is called pressure retarded osmosis and is actually being used at a few energy plants around the world. Attached is a video explaining the process.