“Here comes the fun” with a Solar Shed as a Power Supply for a Virtual Vacation

The concept of the shed as a giant power supply for consumer electronics and recharging one's batteries in such gadgets as phones, personal movie theaters, electronic book readers, and netbooks computers as well as a living and storage place opens up the idea of my solar shed as a general purpose room for the universal traveler. It could be a garden room, a gathering room, a game room, or a gym, but in all cases, it must be powered by free energy. The idea of a portable and practical study and office occurred to me and, therefore, I located and began to use items such as LED battery powered lap desks, netbook computers, and all kinds of portable consumer electronic devices. I began to study power supplies for consumer electronics and appliances with meters to measure how much electricity they required. I found some portable solar recharging units for phones and laptops.

As an experiment, I developed a game controller for my graphic calculator. It began first as a science fair project, then developed into a software management project, and finally expanded into a new product development. I found books from a popular series to support each of these phases. I used a single AA battery first as my power source. The motivation for the project was that I had read a book on beginning game programming written for teenagers and had written a game I called “APONG” for the calculator. I could not compete with the calculator and needed a way to move my game paddle faster. I am now in the process of replacing the battery as a power supply with the fuel cell hydrogen solar car kit. This is an excellent project to do in a solar shed.