What do you do if you live in a cold valley which barely ever manages to get any sun from September to March? You build an artificial sun if you live in the Norwegian town of Rjukan! Well, almost, what engineers are trying to do, is to reflect the light of the real sun using three enormous rectangular mirrors into the valley town to give it some sunlight. Talk about mammoth science projects.

The Mirror Project involves 328-square foot large heliostatic mirrors, of the kind that are used in solar projects. They will be placed at the edge of the mountains that surround Rjukan and be controlled by computer. A sensor will monitor the angle of the sun and then tilt the mirrors in accordance to enable the maximum sunlight to be reflected. The sensor itself is to be solar powered.

The reflected sunlight will target the town center, and hopefully convert it into a sunny place to be in. Earlier in the month helicopters were used to move the giant mirrors into position. The first tests of the system are slated to begin in the month of September. The town people are paying a fortune to get the science project organized. Lets hope that the sunny rays that hit the town are worth it for them!

The next generation of super computers will be quantum computers which work on qubits. This would replace the current method of using 0s and 1s in the conventional machines. However the scientists who have been working on this  science project have not yet been able to solve the problem of storage of information in quantum computers.

Physicists at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands have been using carbon nano tubes, which are very small hollow tubes made out of carbon, to aid them in developing this new type of storage. They are attempting to measure, control and store these qubits in the carbon nano tubes.

In order to do so, they used a carbon nano tube that was shaped as a ‘U’ and added two electrons on its surface. The spin of an electron is a type of qubit and they hoped to be able to study its behavior in the carbon nano tube. They generated positive and negative electronic fields into which the nano tube was placed and the behavior of the electrons was observed.

Moving the elctron from one spin state to the next was the equivalent of 0s and 1s in the conventional machines. This is an exciting development and may help the science project researchers in building the next generation of storage device for the super computers of the future.

Access to the internet is taken for granted in most developed countries, however the ground reality is that there are over five billion human beings on Earth who have no access to the internet. Google X Lab has decided to tackle this issue with its science project using translucent balloons as transmitters.

The concept involves hooking up 30 huge helium filled balloons to strong transmitters that can provide 3G speed internet connectivity over an area of 780 square miles. The balloons will be launched into the stratosphere and will receive their signals from stations on the ground situated 60 miles apart.

Users would need to install a basket ball sized receiver in their homes to access the internet via the low flying balloon as it crossed over head. Project Loon, as it is being referred to by the California based company, hopes to have enough balloons in the air to ensure uninterrupted internet connectivity.

This way as each balloon reaches the end of its connectivity limit to a particular place on the ground, another balloon is ready to float into position to take over transmitting the signals. Allowing even remotely located areas to have connections to the world wide web. This is one science project that will have a huge impact.

Colony collapse disorder relates to the untimely death of honey bees in millions across the world for no plausible reason. This is cause for worry as bees are responsible for pollination of global crops. No bees means no pollination, which in turn means no food production for humanity. Can this possible global food crisis be solved by a science project at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences?

Researchers here have been working on a robotic solution to honey bees. They have been working on robot bees, which are half the size of a paper clip. Although they are called bees, they are actually based on the model of a fly and have very thin wings capable of flapping a hundred and twenty times in just one second.

Robert J. Wood has led the Robo Bee project for the last 12 years and this year they have finally come up with a working prototype. Everything had to be custom built to make the prototype as no such technology or equipment existed beforehand. The tiny carbon fiber body of the robotic insect is a little miracle of modern science, but will it be enough to fight the challenge ahead? Only more science experiments to perfect the model will tell.

Harnessing solar power in a practical and efficient manner has been the aim of many science projects. None more beautifully illustrated than by the solar powered plane called Solar Impulse. This plane was written off by critics on its maiden flight in 2009 when it managed to rise just 3 feet and for the 30 seconds that it was in the air. It managed to cover just 1150 feet in that flight, but in July 2013 it improved on its record impressively.

The creators of the green flying machine have been working on improvements all along and its progress has been great. In 2012 the plane went intercontinental from Europe to Africa, and this year it flew across the United States. The journey which was nicknamed “Across America” began in San Fransisco, California in May this year and was completed in New York City in July. Along the way the plane took its first halt at Pheonix, Arizona, followed by Dallas, Texas. It then flew on to St. Louis, Missouri, before winging its way to Washington, DC before reaching its final destination in NYC.

The Solar Impulse which has the same 80 meters wing span of an Airbus 380 weighs just 2 tons as opposed to the massive 560 tons weight that an Airbus 380 pulls along. However the Solar Impulse has shown great progress in the past five years of its existence by gaining the ability to fly by day and night. A task no other solar powered plane has mastered so far. May there be many more such successful science experiments dealing with solar power in the future.