Jiaquan Zheng is currently a senior at UH Manoa, pursuing a B.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering. In his free time, he enjoys bodyboarding, playing basketball, tennis, billiard, and he likes to paint and play his guitar. His dream is to someday become a NASA Scientist/ Engineer, or a professional artist. If he is a motto, he would definitely be “happiness makes the world go around”.
Home Island:
High School:
Institution when accepted: University of Hawaii at Manoa
Akamai Project: Using a Sun Sensor – Shutter Device to Protect Cameras
Project Site: Trex Enterprises
Mentors: Dennis Douglas, Chet Johnston, Riki Maeda
Project Abstract:
Cameras can suffer considerable damage from the powerful magnifying effect of the telescope system. The goal for this project is to design a Sun Sensor-Shutter Device to protect the camera. The Sun sensor is mounted and boresighted to the front of the telescope and detects the position of the Sun. A computing unit processes the input to determine the threshold angle, the angle at which the camera will be damaged. When this angle is reached, the processing unit signals a shutter to block the light path. The Sun Sensor-Shutter Device is composed of commercial off-the-shelf components such as an optical power meter, microprocessor, and micromotor, as well as some custom pieces. To maximize the performance of the overall device, all components were selected and designed based on an analysis of position, velocity, acceleration, force, torque, and stress. The Sun sensor uses the simple geometry of a pinhole and detector to set the threshold angle. The shutter uses a slider-crank mechanism for stability. It is calculated that the suitable range of detection for the Sun sensor is about 10 to 30 degrees, and the optimal total response time for the shutter is 0.42 seconds at a maximum velocity of 14.88 in/s.