French Creek Solar Camp

In my quest to develop a voting internet platform I am searching for a computer science person or person’s to help with a new idea. It involves my hometown of Utica and my friend’s businesses, namely their campground and general store/bar. The town is situated on the beautiful French Creek and the platform will coordinate the opportunities for tourism involving these businesses.

The platform will sell memberships for the campground French Creek Farm. Each member will pay $10 per year and receive certain privileges and discounts. The goal is to create an energy grid on the campground that uses primarily solar and battery to provide electrical service to the small rental house on the property and add electric hookups to the sites. Members will be able to vote through the platform on how the grid and other improvements to the campground are enacted.

The Solar Camp platform will be a template that can be applied to other campgrounds that want to go green. The platform will coordinate other businesses that compliment the campground and create interesting experiences for campers. It will also allow campers to govern aspects of the campground through direct democracy.

This platform will allow us to develop a strategy for developing “smart transformers” that can be used on the existing electrical grid. We will do this by placing a small shed on the grounds that has the hardware to monitor energy usage on our small prototype grid. The rental house is connected via meter to the existing power grid so we can also feed power into the main power grid.

Once the shed is in place we will wire it to the rental house and begin connecting photovoltaic panels in the field of the campground. All membership dues will be used to pay for this system as well as all money raised through the guide services provided by Mitch Miller. He will provide kayak trip coordination, bicycle rental, and camp equipment rental. These services can be scheduled through the platform.

Other businesses have sprung up around Utica to take advantage of it’s natural beauty. There is already a kayak trip outfit and an inflatable float outfit that coordinate trips down French Creek. These businesses will be included in the platform if they so choose. For example Mitch can accommodate 4 kayakers but if there are larger groups the platform will default to the other kayak outfitter.

In addition to voting rights, members of the platform will enjoy discounts to camp at French Creek Farm. The platform will also provide simple easy to understand waivers for use of the campground and the outfitters. Members will have to sign off on some of the waivers to become a member and others if they book certain activities.

Back to the experimental power grid we are building at the campground. Once we have some solar panels we can equip the shed with a battery array to store power. The shed will have hardware and software to monitor power generation and battery levels. Once battery levels are full power will be diverted to the electric meter to run the meter backwards as power is fed back to the main grid. The shed system could possibly be expanded to suburbs and other areas in the United States once it is developed.

The next component to the platform is to allow for a pop-up cafe to be initiated by Mitch Miller in the Krabby Kelly’s general store and bar. The platform will allow members to preorder their coffee and baked goods by 5pm the night before they want the items. They will input a rough one hour estimate of pickup to help the cafe owner to coordinate supplies. Eventually a delivery system might be developed to deliver fresh coffee to campers. This aspect of the platform may be used to help other cafe’s and restaurants going forward.

I believe this platform has many profitable aspects in a society that is moving towards ordering from the internet and having something ready. It will cut waste and help campgrounds offer partnerships to outfitters. From the beginning most of the profit from the creator’s activities will be used for sustainable energy. We can offer this platform to other campgrounds and businesses to promote a transition to clean energy.

All members will have voting rights to how this platform is developed and distributed. Anyone in the United States can become a member for $10 per year. Please contact me if you would like to develop this platform and we can discuss ownership and compensation. I have approached the ownership of these businesses and they like the ideas and are willing to work with me to develop this platform and their businesses.