Supercapacitor Storage-based Solar Cell Power Modules

This project is done by Binghamton University mechanical engineering students. It is purpose is to alter the way that solar systems work. Basically super-capacitors are used in the system instead of the batteries to get longer lifetime and smaller size for the solar systems. For more information you can visit this link:

Main purpose of the projects are to prepare a platform that would used to give education to high school senior students or college freshman students about Nano-technology. To achieve this purpose, two animations (Flash animation and google sketchup animation) and a website done by Computer Science Department. This page will include information about how the animations and web page done.

General System Animation

Macromedia Flash 8 is used to create this animation. It is an old version of Adobe CS 5 which is the last version of the Flash suites. Macromedia Flash 8 uses Action Script 2.0. For more information about Action Script 2.0 you can visit this link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ActionScript .

How the Animation Implemented

As you may know Macromedia Suite allows you to create multiple layers for your animation. This is very useful property of the suite because it makes you separate the object from each other. It is better to separate all the object that you are creating with these layers because you may need to move them around without effecting other objects. Also with ordering the layers, you can make the one object drawn on other.

While creating the animation the background prepared first since we can add objects on the background with using layers. Background included the system design which is an bitmap image created in paint and than modified in Macromedia Fireworks 8. Since Macromedia Flash 8 is an animation suite not design suite, it is easy to design on other suites and than import it into the flash project.

Macromedia Fireworks is a good suite for creating object before importing it to the project because you can create background transparent .png images. Otherwise the images you import to the flash project will include unwanted white backgrounds.

After including background, other objects like cloud, energy flows and arrow added to the project. Action script used to make the electricity look like flowing and to make the cloud and arrow moving.

How to Export Animation

After you done with the animation, you should export it as .swf file to put on the web site. (prefer .swf file because it has better quality and the visitors of the web page may play it without needing any plug in but flash player). To do this you should follow these steps.

Under the File tab you should pick Export->Export Movie or you can press ctrl + shift + alt + S

After that chose appropriate folder and save as type: .swf

Than it will pop up an options menu chose:

Version: Flash Player(latest version) Load Order: Bottom Up Action Script: 2.0

Chose only Compressed Movie option

Set the JPEG Quality to 100 than press OK

This .swf file is ready to put on the web page. You may put it on the web with the help of the dreamweaver or directly writing code on the webpage. This will explained on the web page creation part.

Supercapacitors vs Regular Capacitors Animation

The aim of this animation is to show the users the difference between the supercapacitors and the regular capacitors. The animation shows the inner layer of the capacitors which makes the user to realize how the super capacitor holds more charge than regular one. Google SketchUp used to create this animation as movie.

Google Sketchup is a free tool to model 3D or 2D objects. The reason to chose this tool is first of all it is free to use and it allows the user to create detailed models. Modeling on this program is much more easier than modeling on Macromedia Flash 8 but it is harder to move the things around and make frame by frame animation. Since on this animation there wont be any thing moving around but the camera, it was better to use Google SketchUp.

This program also has multi layer capability. You can use these layers in animation to show or not show the layer on the specific scene. Also you can design components or groups to use the same thing over and over again. If you change a components shape or color other objects created from this component will be changed. On the other hand if you change a group's shape or color it wont change the other object created from this group. If you want to change only one object created from an component , you can right click the object and chose the Make Unique option. With this way it will only change that object. It seems hard at the first look of the program but after one or two hours it becomes enjoyable to model with these cool abilities of the Google SketchUp.

How the Modeling Done

First of all you have to create a template. To make this you should follow these steps:

Open Google SketchUp and than press the button that writes Chose Templates Chose Architectural Design - Millimeters Press Start Using SketchUp

It is ready to use the Program. Push/Pull Tool has to be used to create 3D objects. First of all a circle drawn on x/y plane. After that it is pulled up on the z planet with the help of the Push/Pull Tool and there is our cylinder. It is that easy to create 3D objects. Now we can carve, rotate, slice or change color of this object with the help of the other tools. But what we wanted to make here is cylindrical layers one inside each other. To make this you can pick Offset Tool to create smaller circles on the top face of the cylinder. After you do that you can pick one layer between two circles with the Push/Pull Tool and push it to the bottom of the cylinder to delete that layer. This way we can achieve cylindrical multi layers.

This is the part that we have to fill the empty layers wit the activated carbon like shapes. To make this we have to use Freehand Tool. With the help of the Freehand Tool we can draw arbitrary shapes and we can create 3D shapes from these 2D shapes with using Push/Pull Tool. After we fill the empty layers with these arbitrary shapes, we can put the ion object between the arbitrary shapes to finish the Super-capacitor model. Similar to these steps we can design our Regular Capacitor

How the Animation Done

To create animations on Google SketchUp 7.1, you should create scenes first. To create these scenes first you move your camera to desired place and from the menu you chose View than chose Animation - Add Scene. This way you add multiple Scenes to the model in an order. After this point it is up to SketchUp to create the moving effect between scenes. You can set the layers visible or invisible for specific scenes to show or not show some objects on that scene. However the disappearing effect on SketchUp is so sudden that does not look good on animations.

How to Export Animation

Steps for Exporting Animation:

Chose File from menu

Go to Export - Animation

Chose the Video Options From the popup menu.

Press OK

Note: SketchUp creates animation with without concerning the size/quality ratio. You should not worry about it if you are going to embed this video in to a flash because it decreases the size to 1/5 of the video with a small quality lose.

How to Convert .mov to .swf

We had to convert .mov file which was exported from the animation to .swf file to make the animation playable from most of the users. Otherwise users has to have the Quicktime Plugin to see the animation which is not common plugin to have for most users. Also this conversion decreases the size of the animation.

To make this conversion these are the steps that has to be followed: