Our second day at the school!

Time for our second day at the school! During the morning, our team helped to complete the installation of the battery banks and determined how the rewiring was completed by GEP.

More detailed information on the following installation can be found through a series of recordings of Rahul, the GEP associate, who explains the logic behind the electrical work. Afterwards, using the tools lent by Mark Barlow, our Pittsburgh based solar home installer, our team inspected the installed equipment and collected data regarding light intensity readings from the four rows of panels at 11:25AM.

As compared to the original design, the overall 5.3 kW size and array location was maintained while the proposed 215 watt panels were replaced with 135 watt panels.

These panels were attached and structured to the rebar relating to the columns (the rebar was left exposed because this roof was initially built to hold a third floor).

Each row of 10 panels contained a cell string size of 5 panels where every other panel was wired in series.

Each row of panels were wired in parallel with one another. This wiring was led to the base of the brick mounting structure.

These wirings were all led to a junction box that housed the connections. The output was then led from the junction box downstairs to the charge controller.

The output from the PCU then led downstairs to the automatic change over box on the ground floor.

The exposed system behind the wooden door is displayed below:

Towards the end of our second day at the school, Farrukh displayed a gasification unit that was based on rice-husk feedstock for the purpose of residential home cooking.

After leaving the school, fresh locally grown fruits (except for the mango, which may have come from Delhi), were bought from street vendors right outside of Shabad gate. These went for about $1.00 per kilo of each fruit. We had quite the filling lunch with fruits and vegetables at Sarah’s home.

Afterwards, our team took a small break and enjoyed conversation amongst ourselves. We soon dozed off afterwards. After waking up around 5:15PM here, we went straight away to the school site to partake in the English Helpline Institute+Symbiosis Public School function. This event was an opportunity for local college students to interact and hear the conversational tones of our American team.

At this function, we heard the stories of many English learning students and their personal experiences with overcoming their personal adversities in learning the English language Mr. Imran Kahn, first cousin of Sam Shamsi, helped to teach these students the English language.

This was followed by a few words by Sam, Josh, myself, and Michelle.

Afterwards, we commenced for break, where we interacted with the local college students. These students spoke English very well and were really quite warm and friendly in their conversation. We also briefly met with the rotary outgoing and incoming presidents of the local Rampur chapter. This could potentially lead to future funding opportunities as local members become more engaged and provide further support.

Following the commencement, the students of Symbiosis put on performances that ranged from singing and dancing to displaying bad-ass poses. So adorable!

After these performances were completed, the principal had began giving out trophies as mementoes for the EWB-CMU team as well as to GEP and several board members of the Symbiosis Board. Following this, we attempted to play the project symbiosis assessment trip video. We came across a few technical difficulties, but after all was said and done, Sam’s nephew, Hamza, managed to fix the audio problem by placing the mics atop the laptop speakers. We played the video, which was a hit with the crowd, especially the scene with Ken Murphy attempting to ride the school bicycles through the gravel.

Through accident, the windows player was left on autoplay, in which case, the next clip from the last winter gala event was played. This was Carnegie Mellon’s own all male Indian Acapella group, Deewane. The mash-up between Maroon 5’s This Love and Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na’s Kabhi Kabhi Aditi was actually played and was quite amazing (even to hear the second time around for myself). After the event was wrapped up, the entire team decided to grab one more celebratory photo with everyone involved!

Afterwards, Farrukh, Rahul, Vivek, Asrar, Sam, Sam’s brother Shazay and sister Sarah along with their kids Hamza and Hassan, along with Josh, Michelle, and myself, went out for dinner at Rampur Rasoi (Rampur Kitchen). Here we were offered a wide variety of spicy vegetarian dishes such as daal handi, paneer, and various assorted roti. Afterwards, we eventually travelled back home and crashed out. Well, Josh and Michelle anyway, I’m still up writing this article at 1:00AM over here. Think it’s about bed time for me!