Just in time to cap off our hugely successful volunteer effort at UT Austin, we have been featured on the website of the University of Texas at Austin's Texas Materials Institute. Thank you to all of our volunteers! Click on the image below to read the full article.
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We are sharing our aluminum/air battery experiment manual so that anyone interested can make their own batteries and learn about the exciting world of electrochemical energy conversion. With the help of Dr. Soosairaj Therese, a Chemistry professor at Bronx Community College, we've made a short video of the aluminum/air battery experiment to share with her students in New York City as well as for our SciBridge partner universities in Africa. Once we finalize the experiment procedure, we will post it on our website so that anyone can make their own metal/air battery! SciBridge volunteers at UT Austin met up today to package up supplies for our newest experiment kit on aluminum - air (Al - air) batteries to share with our African partner universities. We are very excited about the concepts that this experiment kit demonstrates - electrochemical energy conversion, the huge energy densities of metal - air batteries, the difficulty of making these batteries rechargeable, and the physics of light-emitting diodes (LEDs). Check out photos from our kit-building day below - we made 10 kits! Thank you to Pauline, Siyang, Bee, and Martha for volunteering their time today! Our assembled Al - air batteries lighting up a blue LED (whose invention won the 2014 Nobel Prize in Physics!). Bee and Martha counting glass plates and vials for the kits. Siyang, Pauline, Martha, and Bee working on kit assembly. Al - air battery kits almost ready to go to our 9 partner SciBridge universities in Uganda, Ethiopia, and Tanzania!
This was another great day on SciBridge calendar when focus was on Mbarara University of Science & Technology (MUST). The Vice Chair and African organizer pf the SciBridge project, John Paul Eneku, visited the university today to kick start project activities. It was a successful workshop, thanks to the amazing hosts and SciBridge team & partners. The Physics department set aside a day to host the workshop and 52 students (both undergraduate and graduate) attended! Check out photos of Mbarara students making solar cells as well as some of the scenery around Mbarara, Uganda, below. A big thank you to all the great students and staff at MUST who participated so enthusiastically in this workshop! Physics undergraduate students held a successful workshop to fabricate dye sensitized solar cells using a natural dye from their local environment. The workshop was organized and managed by the Physics Dept. under the leadership of Festo Kiragga, a Physics lecturer and SciBridge coordinator. Congratulations to Gulu University! A web seminar awaits you and it will come soon where you will connect with a U.S. expert on dye sensitized solar cell research. Thank you for participating in the SciBridge project!
Meanwhile, check out the photos from the workshop at Gulu University below! Today at Bustimeta University, SciBridge held a very successful seminar/introduction to dye sensitized solar cells along with the experiment to construct the cell. The students were very excited, especially about the fact that the numerous natural dyes in their backyards hold immense potential to generate solar electricity. Now that they have received complete kits for experiment and research, they are looking forward to the hands-on activity of investigating natural dyes found in their localities.The students also extend their sincere gratitude to the SciBridge project especially the Chair, Vice Chair, US volunteers, the University of Texas, the University of California (Institute of NanoScience) and all resourceful persons that made it possible for them to access the high tech scientific experiment.
The day was set aside for a web based seminar by Professor Vincent Tung from UC Merced (USA) and a hands-on demonstration of the fabrication of dye sensitized solar cells. The demonstrations were held but the seminar was postponed to a later date due to technical hitches. Meet the excited and motivated members of SciBridge at the Islamic University in Uganda (Physics students and their lecturers)! SciBridge project Vice Chair John Paul sharing basics about the dye sensitized solar cells with the enthusiastic physics students. Students in a moment of excitement together behind the scenes of the hands on experiment on solar cell fabrication. Excited students in a group photo right after solar cell workshop activities. Students with their lecturer, Ms. Rashidah Akoba (4th from right) and SciBridge Vice Chair John Paul Eneku (3rd from left).
Business at SciBridge is back as usual. SciBridge project activities have resumed in Uganda. The new academic semesters recently opened in all six Ugandan partner universities (Makerere University, Gulu University, Kyambogo University, Mbarara University of Science and Technology, Islamic University in Uganda, and Busitema University).
Already preparations are in high gear in five of the partner universities for their respective first solar cell workshop, which will be followed by a web-based seminar between candidates and a solar cell research expert from the United States. Also, a considerable number of candidates at each partner university are engaged in individual research topics on fabrication and testing cell efficiency using a range of natural dyes as sensitizers, which are abundant in Uganda’s vast natural environment. More project activities are expected to open in two more African countries soon (Tanzania and Ethiopia). SciBridge is working hard to grow and sustain this new-found scientific dialogue between Africa and the United States. Here are some photos of my visit (today) to Islamic University in Uganda to oversee progress and conduct a mock exercise of the solar cell fabrication. The candidates were excited about the solar cell innovation and were anxious to explore it. Our session ended at sunset, see the beautiful image of sunset here in Uganda today. Our first kit arrived to Gulu University in Uganda! John Paul does a great job of organizing the Ugandan network of universities to ensure the experiment kits are delivered in a timely manner. Check out photos of the kit arrival below - we are excited to welcome the Gulu University students to SciBridge!
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