The final goal of this project was to design a house which used as little energy as possible, while still being fully functional and environmentally friendly. This project was vastly larger than any other project I did and was split into many parts. The main fragments of this project were designing a water heater, learning day lighting techniques, testing various building materials, how to generate electricity, and finally blueprinting the house.
Daylighting Techniques
This piece was focused on learning various day lighting techniques. We tested the effectiveness of multiple window types using a flash light as a fake sun and recording how much light each window allowed into a model house. Light Shelves: Reflective horizontal surfaces that bounce light deep into a building. Placed above eye level Clerestory Windows: Windows placed near the ceiling to admit light into a building Solar Tubes: Tubes in the roof of a building which allow light to enter after being reflected through the tube and diffused after exiting the tube to evenly cover an area. Skylights: A window placed on the top of a building to capture light Solar Angles
To maximize how much light could be captured by windows in our final designs, we had to learn about solar angles. Solar angles are the angles sunlight will hit the ground during various times of the year. Another important aspect of solar angles is that the sun also produces heat. Putting overhangs to block out sunlight waves with higher angle measures will help keep a home cooler during summer months. The angle at which something receives sunlight changes because of Earth's tilt relative to the sun. If the northern hemisphere is experiencing summer, then Earth is at a point of rotation around the sun where Earth's 23.5 degree tilt has the northern hemisphere closer to the sun. This will cause higher temperatures and more direct sunlight to hit the northern hemisphere and it will appear that the sun is higher up in the sky. During winter for the northern hemisphere, Earth has made a half rotation around the sun from the point of summer so the northern hemisphere is now tilted away from the sun and receives less direct sunlight. This will cause cooler temperatures and a shorter angle of sunlight hitting the surface of Earth. Solar Water Heater
During this mini project, our group was tasked with designing a water heater that worked off of just sun light. After constructing the initial design, we tested its efficacy by heating water for one hour and recording the difference in temperatures from the water before and after heating. Materials Heat Testing Lab
Physics Terms: Heat - energy due to kinetic vibration of molecules Specific Heat Capacity - measure of how much heat an object can hold Radiation - heat transfer using rays Convection - heat transfer though a fluid Conduction - heat transfer through a material After learning about how to allow light, and heat, into a house, my S.T.E.M class tested multiple types of materials to see which ones could retain heat the best for certain situations. To test this, we placed various materials one at a time under a heat lamp and recorded the temperature of the material every two minutes while the lamp was on for a total of ten minutes. We then recorded the temperature of the material cooling down every two minutes for a total of 10 minutes. Materials with a high specific heat capacity would be ideal for interior surfaces because it would keep the interior of the house at an average temperature throughout a full day. Lighter colored materials, e.g white paint, are better for brightening up a room because the color white reflects almost all of the visible light spectrum. White is also preferable because it reflects some infrared rays leading to a better distribution of heat inside a home. |
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Power Generation
Generating electricity for a home can be done in many ways. My S.T.E.M class researched various forms of electricity generation and their effects on Earth's climate. We then tested various forms of wind turbines by creating scaled down models and testing them in three wind conditions. They were tested on a vertical axis with low wind (a fan set to low), medium wind (a fan set to high), and finally extreme wind (a leaf blower). Then they were tested on a horizontal axis with the same wind conditions. The goal of the final project was to design a home which had environmentally friendly electricity generation so we chose solar power to provide for our house. |
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Passive Solar Home Design
Reflection
My main take away on this project was actual engineering is a lot more complicated than theoretical engineering. After spending months on how various things such as daylighting techniques and water heaters work, you go and test them yourself and find they do not work as planned. Also, there were so many variables to consider when creating a house design that things would become very complicated in the actual planning phase. We had to take into account what daylighting techniques work, what the makeup and color of most materials needed to be, the actual budgeting of the whole thing, and many other small bits and pieces throughout the two months. As always, time management comes into play with so much to plan and do. My group struggled to effectively balance the work needed to be done between the four of us. This caused us to sway off schedule, and we ended up working extra near the end of the project.
My main take away on this project was actual engineering is a lot more complicated than theoretical engineering. After spending months on how various things such as daylighting techniques and water heaters work, you go and test them yourself and find they do not work as planned. Also, there were so many variables to consider when creating a house design that things would become very complicated in the actual planning phase. We had to take into account what daylighting techniques work, what the makeup and color of most materials needed to be, the actual budgeting of the whole thing, and many other small bits and pieces throughout the two months. As always, time management comes into play with so much to plan and do. My group struggled to effectively balance the work needed to be done between the four of us. This caused us to sway off schedule, and we ended up working extra near the end of the project.