Abstract:

The use of renewable energy sources has become a current need, mainly to reduce the environmental impacts generated by other energy sources. From this, with the gradual advance of technology, the photovoltaic energy indexes come into evidence, in order to expand the production of electric energy. In order to better optimize the capture of solar energy, solar trackers are being used more and more. These systems are formed by mechanical and electrical materials that aim to position the panels perpendicularly to the incident solar rays. Thus, in this work we unite the active methodology of Project-Based Learning (PBL) with Environmental Education and the area of Electronics, with the objective that a graduate student in the Environment, along with three students from Technical High School in Electronics, build a didactic solar tracker, which has the ability to improve the quality of solar energy capture and which has in its composition the Arduino board and the light dependent sensors (LDR), which together are part of this electromechanical system. With the use of the Arduino platform, it was possible to move the photovoltaic solar panel that would be positioned towards the Sun. In this way, the assembly of this electromechanical system was carried out, based on active learning methodologies and interaction between these students. Through the applied PBL approach, students from these different levels of education sought this solution regarding obtaining photovoltaic energy in a sustainable way, uniting different areas of education (Environment and Electronics), in addition to applying their knowledge and acquiring new ones. The obtained results showed that the developed application obtained excellent results, as well as learning by all the students involved.

Keywords:

Solar tracker, Arduino, Problem-Based Learning, Active methodologies, Solar energy.