Energy Efficient housing- Build and design a passive solar home
Oh my gosh the past crazy 8 weeks we have been working on this group of projects. I have done and learned so may things along the way. I have also been very lucky in the group I got to work with. This 8 week project(s) had been split up into 9 different learning/building processes. As you can see on the picture it shows you each different segment, along with a small description in what we would be doing in each. This project has given me lots of new information that I constantly relay and use very day.
As you can see in the first few week as a class we learned about atomic structure, state, and heat, solar angles and how it changes during the season. When we went over atoms we went over the basic things we learned in 8th grade, each part, what it does. Then we read a very interesting piece from a book that I cannot recall the name of. This piece stated that atoms do not follow the rules/laws we have set up scientifically. It says that the electrons on an atom can disappear and reappear, I mean how cool is that. The solar angles portion covered how toget the most amount of sunlight at each angle. I also learned how much light/radiation is dispersed at each type of solar angle. This link can show you what angles the sun is at each month in the year http://sanmarinscience.weebly.com/home-site.html. With this gained information we then built/designed a solar water heater. The pictures below show you the sheets upon which the ideas were born for our solar water heater. It also shows you an explanation of how the solar water heater actually worked.
In the next portion we learned about different day lighting techniques. This would include solar tubes, light shelves, skylights. clearstory windows and of course regular windows. We learned about each on and how they work. After doing this we did a site selection. This site selection was for a solar home, what would be the best place to put one. As a group we choose 3 locations and then scored them on sun/shade, accessibility, sun time of day, tree cover/landscape, noise, space, temp., privacy, wind exposure, view/elevation. We scored them on a 1-10 scale 10 being the highest, 1 being the lowest. After doing the site selection we built/designed a home using at least 3 of the different types of day lighting techniques. This part was really amazing because we really saw how much you could lower your energy bill if added one of these into your own homes.
The big part this project was leading up too is designing a cold frame for the garden club. The other part was creating something the would get light into the northern window of our solar studio. This part of the project was hard. We really had to put our thinking caps on. I don't even think our group started making our reflector for the solar studio until halfway through the project. You can look at both of the projects through the links to the Google presentations. https://docs.google.com/a/students.nusd.org/presentation/d/18fifw1GooJgUrdOngpyzospzV-uq1lcpIjHit-jRH3g/edit( cold frame) https://docs.google.com/a/students.nusd.org/presentation/d/1E246-3oipEhpjj_vnAk7gsKR_lv13Pa12-HPjZ1pVaE/edit(Northern Window project). I do have to say that my favorite part of this project was presenting it to the judges. As a group we got good feedback back, that we can now work on in future projects, which is something I really like.
The last project we did was create a wind turbine and you can see it in the power point presentation with all of the other papers I wanted to show you. We also did a justification. Have you ever caught yourself asking "Why should I go solar?, or Why should we build off grid homes?" Well this justification will answer your unanswered questions. This justification will tell you how each energy source works, its pros and cons.
The past 8 weeks have been a very amazing learning process, many of which completely blew my mind. Some pros of the project were that I got to learn about different lighting techniques. I can know to bring this into my life when I get my own house and I want to save money. Another pro was that I got to work with an amazing group. We worked very well together. Some cons in the project would be lack of communication in my group. At some times there would be a lack of communication and something wouldn't go right, but then it was fixed. Another con would be the fact that there was at times some tension in our group. Something I need to work on is making sure the group is at the same level, so there are no conflicts. All in all these past 8 weeks have been very amazing and informative.
In the next portion we learned about different day lighting techniques. This would include solar tubes, light shelves, skylights. clearstory windows and of course regular windows. We learned about each on and how they work. After doing this we did a site selection. This site selection was for a solar home, what would be the best place to put one. As a group we choose 3 locations and then scored them on sun/shade, accessibility, sun time of day, tree cover/landscape, noise, space, temp., privacy, wind exposure, view/elevation. We scored them on a 1-10 scale 10 being the highest, 1 being the lowest. After doing the site selection we built/designed a home using at least 3 of the different types of day lighting techniques. This part was really amazing because we really saw how much you could lower your energy bill if added one of these into your own homes.
The big part this project was leading up too is designing a cold frame for the garden club. The other part was creating something the would get light into the northern window of our solar studio. This part of the project was hard. We really had to put our thinking caps on. I don't even think our group started making our reflector for the solar studio until halfway through the project. You can look at both of the projects through the links to the Google presentations. https://docs.google.com/a/students.nusd.org/presentation/d/18fifw1GooJgUrdOngpyzospzV-uq1lcpIjHit-jRH3g/edit( cold frame) https://docs.google.com/a/students.nusd.org/presentation/d/1E246-3oipEhpjj_vnAk7gsKR_lv13Pa12-HPjZ1pVaE/edit(Northern Window project). I do have to say that my favorite part of this project was presenting it to the judges. As a group we got good feedback back, that we can now work on in future projects, which is something I really like.
The last project we did was create a wind turbine and you can see it in the power point presentation with all of the other papers I wanted to show you. We also did a justification. Have you ever caught yourself asking "Why should I go solar?, or Why should we build off grid homes?" Well this justification will answer your unanswered questions. This justification will tell you how each energy source works, its pros and cons.
The past 8 weeks have been a very amazing learning process, many of which completely blew my mind. Some pros of the project were that I got to learn about different lighting techniques. I can know to bring this into my life when I get my own house and I want to save money. Another pro was that I got to work with an amazing group. We worked very well together. Some cons in the project would be lack of communication in my group. At some times there would be a lack of communication and something wouldn't go right, but then it was fixed. Another con would be the fact that there was at times some tension in our group. Something I need to work on is making sure the group is at the same level, so there are no conflicts. All in all these past 8 weeks have been very amazing and informative.
Vocabulary(Concepts)
Radiation- the process in which energy is emitted as particles or waves
Convection- the transfer of heat by the circulation or movement of the heated parts of a liquid or gas
Conduction- the transfer of heat between two parts of a stationary system, caused by a temperature difference between the parts
Insulation- something that prevents or reduces the transfer or passage of heat
Absorption- the retention of heat
Reflection- the redirection of heat away
Temperature vs. Heat- Very simply, temperature is the measure of how much heat (or lack thereof) a substance contains.
Specific Heat- How much and how long a substance can hold heat.
Laws Of Thermodynamics- The Zeroth Law of Thermodynamics states that if two systems are in thermal equilibrium with a third system, they are in equilibrium with each other (if a=b and b=c, then a=c). The First Law says that energy is neither created nor destroyed. The Second Law says that entropy increases. Finally, the Third Law says that there is always a tiny bit of heat, the temperature will never get to absolute zero.
Radiation- the process in which energy is emitted as particles or waves
Convection- the transfer of heat by the circulation or movement of the heated parts of a liquid or gas
Conduction- the transfer of heat between two parts of a stationary system, caused by a temperature difference between the parts
Insulation- something that prevents or reduces the transfer or passage of heat
Absorption- the retention of heat
Reflection- the redirection of heat away
Temperature vs. Heat- Very simply, temperature is the measure of how much heat (or lack thereof) a substance contains.
Specific Heat- How much and how long a substance can hold heat.
Laws Of Thermodynamics- The Zeroth Law of Thermodynamics states that if two systems are in thermal equilibrium with a third system, they are in equilibrium with each other (if a=b and b=c, then a=c). The First Law says that energy is neither created nor destroyed. The Second Law says that entropy increases. Finally, the Third Law says that there is always a tiny bit of heat, the temperature will never get to absolute zero.