Sassy Sound Solar Cleaner
Makayla Gates
Age 13
Peralta, NM
Makayla invented a levitational solar panel cleaner, which consists of a 20KHz ultrasonic transducer, basically a speaker which produces a frequency above human hearing, according to CDC regulations to prevent ear damage, mounted on a track system much like track lighting, only at ground level. It is placed directly below the photovoltaic cell array with the edge of the transducer, even with the edge of the cell array and tilted at the same angle, somewhere between 75 degrees to 90 degrees, to allow the sound wave produced to skim the surface of the panels.