{"id":84634,"date":"2018-09-18T08:19:08","date_gmt":"2018-09-18T18:19:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/?p=84634"},"modified":"2020-03-13T12:47:01","modified_gmt":"2020-03-13T22:47:01","slug":"uh-hilo-charging-stations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2018\/09\/18\/uh-hilo-charging-stations\/","title":{"rendered":"UH<\/abbr> Hilo and Hawai\u02bbi CC<\/abbr> partner on solar-powered charging stations"},"content":{"rendered":"Reading time: <\/span> 2<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span>
\"students
The covered recharging stations outside the Student Services Center. Photo by Raiatea Arcuri, UH<\/abbr> Hilo Stories<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The University of Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> at Hilo<\/a> built several solar-powered charging stations over the summer complete with seating, USB<\/abbr> ports, wi-fi access and a unique roof and gutter system to keep students dry during Hilo\u2019s rainy weather.<\/p>\n

The projects were completed through a collaboration between the Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> Community College<\/a> carpentry program and the UH<\/abbr> Hilo\u2019s administrative affairs team.<\/p>\n

Cost efficiency was key for the project to fit within the allocated summer project budget. Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> CC<\/abbr> carpentry students prepared and installed the concrete pads for the shelters and then constructed the 10 picnic tables. UH<\/abbr> Hilo\u2019s information technology specialists designed the solar infrastructure to charge electronic devices and installed wi-fi access points at each of the stations.<\/p>\n

The team, which included UH<\/abbr> Hilo\u2019s Dave Baptiste<\/strong> and Shannon Asejo<\/strong> and Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> CC<\/abbr>\u2019s Gene Harada<\/strong> and Darryl Vierra<\/strong> and the Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> CC<\/abbr> carpentry students, built and installed the tables at a fraction of the cost of purchasing and shipping tables with solar-powered charging stations to Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span>. The estimate to ship a 4-seat solar powered charging station table to Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> was $17,946 per table. The material and supply cost to construct the 8-seat (or wheelchair accessible 6-seat) wood picnic table with a metal roof and gutter was $2,592 per table and extra solar panels from a previous project were used to keep costs down. The projects were initiated by Interim Vice Chancellor for Administrative Affairs Kalei Rapoza<\/strong> and Interim Chancellor Marcia Sakai<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The design of the stations includes solar panels mounted on the roofs to produce efficient renewable solar energy stored in a battery until students access the USB<\/abbr> ports and outlets to charge electronic devices. A timing mechanism conserves the stored solar energy when the ports and outlets are not in use. The timer activates the USB<\/abbr> ports and 110V outlets in 30-minute intervals to charge electronic devices and can be reactivated for subsequent 30-minute intervals.<\/p>\n

The stations are in response to student requests for more covered outdoor spaces to sit, eat, talk story and study.<\/p>\n

To read the full story go to UH<\/abbr> Hilo Stories<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

—By Susan Enright<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The solar-powered charging stations are complete with seating, USB<\/abbr> ports, wi-fi access and a unique roof and gutter system to keep students dry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[21,691,346,61,71,14,907],"class_list":["post-84634","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community","tag-21st-century-facilities","tag-administration","tag-carpentry","tag-hawaii-community-college","tag-uh-community-colleges","tag-uh-hilo","tag-uh-hilo-stories","entry","has-media"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84634","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84634"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84634\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":113567,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84634\/revisions\/113567"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}