The thesis will explore sources of scientific funding, analyze the impacts of intellectual property, describe the reproducibility/replicability crisis, and explore various scientific policies. Additionally, this thesis will determine whether all scientific findings should be released for total transparency, if everything should be kept under lock and key to maximize profits and protect the intellectual property of the scientists, or if there should be some healthy medium between the two. For each option, the inherent positives and negatives will be discussed to show how scientific research can change to best fit the needs of everyone involved. Furthermore, this thesis will explore possible solutions to remedy the issues found and how such propositions can be reasonably applied. The research was conducted through a series of interviews with expert faculty members on the Arizona State University Campus. Ultimately, in order for improvements to be made, a number of changes need to happen at a foundational level through a series of new science policy and research practice implementations.

This honors thesis proposes a sustainable solution for providing off-grid solar energy to rural communities lacking grid energy infrastructure. The proposed design emphasizes sustainability, low cost, reliability, and ease of maintenance and manufacturing. The report compares pre-built solar systems currently available for purchase with the proposed design. The project includes a user manual draft to ensure long-term sustainability and troubleshooting. Additionally, there is a detailed engineering design for a battery storage solution, electrical component design, and solar panel mounting system. A rural community in northern Arizona serves as an example for the project completed in collaboration with ASU's EPICS program and EWB Chapter. The project is ongoing, with future work to optimize and improve the proposed system design.

This honors thesis proposes a sustainable solution for providing off-grid solar energy to rural communities lacking grid energy infrastructure. The proposed design emphasizes sustainability, low cost, reliability, and ease of maintenance and manufacturing. The report compares pre-built solar systems currently available for purchase with the proposed design. The project includes a user manual draft to ensure long-term sustainability and troubleshooting. Additionally, there is a detailed engineering design for a battery storage solution, electrical component design, and solar panel mounting system. A rural community in northern Arizona serves as an example for the project completed in collaboration with ASU's EPICS program and EWB Chapter. The project is ongoing, with future work to optimize and improve the proposed system design.

This honors thesis report aims to propose a sustainable long-term solution for providing off-grid solar energy to rural communities that lack the necessary grid energy infrastructure. With this in mind, we aim to establish the framework and documentation for people to be able to build and maintain their own off-grid solar power systems. Due to recent incentives for clean energy both nationwide and statewide, the team will discuss the current renewable energy market and the future growth potential of residential solar energy systems, which includes off-grid or remote solar. This discussion will include comparing pre-built solar systems currently offered for purchase against the proposed design outlined in this report. Notably, the outlined design has been made with an emphasis on system sustainability, low initial cost, reliability, ease of manufacturing/maintenance, and material selection. Lastly, the team will discuss the project’s approach to documentation with a user manual draft to ensure the system's long-term sustainability and troubleshooting. Although the efforts of this project have increased over time, this project remains active within the ASU EWB chapter, meaning that not all aspects described throughout this report are fully complete as future work will continue to optimize and improve the system. A rural community in northern Arizona, will be used as an example to understand a rural community's needs for designing a solar panel system that provides sufficient energy for a single household. The project was completed in collaboration with Arizona State University’s Engineering Projects In Community Service (EPICS) program and Engineers Without Borders (EWB) chapter. Both these organizations aim to connect ASU students to the professional mentors and resources they need to design and implement low-cost, small-scale, easily replicated, and sustainable engineering projects.

In this thesis report, I aim to explain the realities of humanitarian efforts to implement solar panel systems in rural communities, the challenges they face, and why they fail. I will also compare case studies of both unsuccessful and successful projects, which will lead to a proposed solar panel system design for a single home completed in collaboration with Arizona State University's Engineering Projects in Community Service (EPICS) Program for the Shonto Solar project.