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Semakin pesatnya perkembangan IPTEK di era globalisasi seperti sekarang ini menuntut pihak akademik berperan aktif dalam memajukan kehidupan Bangsa Indonesia terutama dalam hal pengembangan IPTEK itu sendiri. Untuk itu, kami Himpunan Mahasiswa Profesi Teknik Elektro UNNES periode 2008 khususnya Departemen Penelitian & Penalaran dan Departemen Pengembangan Organisasi & SDM mewakili pihak jurusan berusaha turut serta secara nyata melalui kegiatan Workshop Robotika tingkat SMA/SMK se-Jawa Tengah.

Melalui kegiatan ini diharapkan mahasiswa peserta Workshop dapat diarahkan untuk dapat menyalurkan potensi dan kreatifitas dalam usaha pengembangan IPTEK khususnya teknologi Robotika di kalangan SMA/SMK se-Jawa Tengah, selain itu juga dalam rangka pemenuhan SDM masyarakat Indonesia yang inovatif dan produktif.
Dalam kegiatan ini diharapkan Siswa Sma/SMK dapat mengembangkan daya kreatifitas mereka dalam menjadi generasi penerus bangsa. Disamping itu agar dapat menciptakan suatu terobosan teknologi Robotika yang baru dan berguna bagi bangsa dan negara khususnya di bidang Teknologi Robotika. Output dari kegiatan ini diharapkan dapat bermanfaat bagi generasi muda untuk mengembangkan Teknologi Robotika.

Nama Kegiatan : Workshop Robotika 2008
Bentuk Kegiatan : Seminar dan Pelatihan Robot
Sasaran : Siswa- siswi SMA/SMK Se-Jawa Tengah
Pelaksanaan : Sabtu-Minggu, 26-27 April 2008
Tempat : Gd. E8 Lt. 1 (ruang 101) Jur. Teknik Elektro FT UNNES
Kampus Sekaran Gunung Pati, Semarang 50229

Kontribusi : Rp 50.000,-
Pembayaran : * Langsung ke Sekretariat Himpro TE UNNES, Gd. PKM FT Unnes Kampus Sekaran Gunung Pati Semarang 50229
* atau transfer ke Rekening BPD a.n Marwanto No. rekening 2-034-30037-9
Pendaftaran : Sekretariat Himpro TE UNNES, Gd. PKM FT Unnes Kampus Sekaran Gunung Pati Semarang 50229. Via email robotik@himprote-unnes.com
Pendaftaran paling lambat tanggal 23 April 2008.
Contact Person : Marwanto (08156566847)
Safudin (085865310612)
Rohman (085640501490)

Hitung Tagihan Listrik, Update Tiap Hari
Penghitungan Biaya Penggunaan Listrik Memakai KWH Meter Sederhana tapi aplikatif. Konsep inilah yang diangkat dalam karya cipta dua pelajar Albert Halim dan Satria Arief Budi. Mereka berhasil menciptakan sebuah alat yang diberi nama KWH Meter... Alat ini terilhami cara konvensional PLN saat mengecek penggunaan listrik pada pelanggan. "Baru dari hasil pengecekan dihitung berapa tagihan listriknya. Ini kurang praktis," ucap Albert. Seharusnya ada alat yang bisa menghitung langsung berapa tagihan listrik. Kalau bisa selalu update.Dengan KWH Meter, tidak perlu lagi ada petugas keliling. Data penggunaan listrik bisa otomatis dikirim dan langsung dihitung. Cara kerja alat ini simpel. Data dari penghitung KWH mekanik yang dipasang PLN di tiap rumah dikonversi terlebih dahulu ke data digital. "Alat konversinya kami sebut versi pertama KWH Meter," ucap Albert.Dari versi pertama, baru dikembangkan dengan menambah kemampuan pengiriman data analog yang sudah dikonversi digital ke server. Pengiriman dilakukan melalui kabel serial. Di server, data digital diolah dan dihitung tagihannya. Perhitungan tagihan juga sudah disesuaikan dengan standar PLN. Akurasinya dijamin 100 persen.Awalnya, kedua pelajar ini berencana memproses data KWH secara real time. Artinya, tiap sepersekian detik, data penggunaan listrik akan dikirim dan dihitung berapa tagihannya. Namun hal itu tidak mungkin dilakukan."Bayangkan berapa pengguna listrik di Surabaya? Bisa-bisa server komputer tidak mampu melayani banyaknya kiriman data yang masuk," jelas Albert. Untuk itu, kemudian mereka mengambil solusi dengan cara melakukan scheduling pengiriman data. Contoh pada satu pengguna. Data akan dikirim tepat pukul 12 malam. Pengguna lainnya lima menit setelahnya. Dengan solusi tersebut, server akan melayani permintaan secara bergantian sehingga kecil kemungkinan untuk drop dan pengguna pun tetap bisa mengupdate tagihan listrik tiap hari.Kendala terbesar pembuatan alat ini ada pada penghitungan KWH yang biasa di pasang di rumah pelanggan. "Alat itu tidak dijual secara umum. Hanya PLN yang punya," kata Albert. Beruntung, mereka akhirnya berhasil mendapatkan KWH Meter yang diinginkan.Kesulitan lain yang dihadapi ada pada proses pengiriman data. "Cukup sulit, karena kami baru pertama kali," jelas Albert. Harapannya, semoga alat ini bisa diaplikasikan dan menambah efisiensi kerja PLN.


Oleh Albert Halim, Pelajar SMA Petra 2 Surabaya Satria Arief Budi, Mahasiswa Teknik Mesin UK Petra

Dead cell phone inspired researcher’s innovation

Davide Castelvecchi, American Institute of PhysicsNovember 14, 2006

Recharging your laptop computer, your cell phone and a variety of other gadgets may one day be as convenient as surfing the web–wirelessly.

Marin Soljacic, an assistant professor in MIT’s Department of Physics and Research Laboratory of Electronics, will describe his and his MIT colleagues’ research on that wireless future on Tuesday, Nov. 14 at the American Institute of Physics Industrial Physics Forum in San Francisco.

Like many of us, Soljacic (pronounced Soul-ya-CHEECH) often forgets to recharge his cell phone, and when it is about to die it emits an unpleasant noise. “Needless to say, this always happens in the middle of the night,” he said. “So, one night, at 3 a.m., it occurred to me: Wouldn’t it be great if this thing charged itself?” He began to wonder if any of the physics principles he knew of could turn into new ways of transmitting energy.

After all, scientists and engineers have known for nearly two centuries that transferring electric power does not require wires to be in physical contact. Electric motors and power transformers contain coils that transmit energy to each other by the phenomenon of electromagnetic induction. A current running in an emitting coil induces another current in a receiving coil; the two coils are in close proximity, but they do not touch.



Later, scientists discovered electromagnetic radiation in the form of radio waves, and they showed that another form of it–light–is how we get energy from the sun. But transferring energy from one point to another through ordinary electromagnetic radiation is typically very inefficient: The waves tend to spread in all directions, so most of the energy is lost to the environment.

Soljacic realized that the close-range induction taking place inside a transformer–or something similar to it–could potentially transfer energy over longer distances, say, from one end of a room to the other. Instead of irradiating the environment with electromagnetic waves, a power transmitter would fill the space around it with a “non-radiative” electromagnetic field. Energy would only be picked up by gadgets specially designed to “resonate” with the field. Most of the energy not picked up by a receiver would be reabsorbed by the emitter.

In his talk, Soljacic will explain the physics of non-radiative energy transfer and the possible design of wireless-power systems.

While rooted in well-known laws of physics, non-radiative energy transfer is a novel application no one seems to have pursued before. “It certainly was not clear or obvious to us in the beginning how well it could actually work, given the constraints of available materials, extraneous environmental objects, and so on. It was even less clear to us which designs would work best,” Soljacic said. He and his colleagues tackled the problem through theoretical calculations and computer simulations.

With the resulting designs, non-radiative wireless power would have limited range, and the range would be shorter for smaller-size receivers. But the team calculates that an object the size of a laptop could be recharged within a few meters of the power source. Placing one source in each room could provide coverage throughout your home.

Soljacic is looking forward to a future when laptops and cell phones might never need any wires at all. Wireless, he said, could also power other household gadgets that are now becoming more common. “At home, I have one of those robotic vacuum cleaners that cleans your floors automatically,” he said. “It does a fantastic job but, after it cleans one or two rooms, the battery dies.” In addition to consumer electronics, wireless energy could find industrial applications powering, for example, freely roaming robots within a factory pavilion.

Soljacic’s colleagues in the work are Aristeidis Karalis, a graduate student in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and John Joannopoulos, the Francis Wright Davis Professor of Physics. Both are also affiliated with the Research Laboratory of Electronics. The work is funded in part by the Materials Research Science and Engineering Center program of the National Science Foundation.