Passive solar home design
At the beginning of this new project, we were handed a sheet of 9 smaller projects that would make up our total project. My group for this project was Arno Puppo, Elise Chassman, and Sebastian Zarrehpavar. We have been working on these projects for the last 2 months.
Our first project was the Atomic structure, state, and heat. We learned so many new things about atoms and here are some facts about them:
1. There are 45,000,000,000,000,000,000 atoms in a sugar cube sized air spot
2. There are recycled atoms in your body from stars and other people
3. The nucleus in an atom is the same ratio to a fly in a gym
Vocabulary Terms for the projects:
nucleus- center of the atom
molecule- multiple atoms bonded together
compound- type of molecule with different types of elements in a molecule
isotope- atom with unusual number of neutrons
ion- atom with unusual number of electrons
heat- a form of energy
conduction- transfer of heat through a solid
convection- transfer of heat through a liquid
radiation- transfer of heat through waves, particles, and rays
insulation- bad at conducting
Our second project was the solar water heater design. For this project we had do design a water heater heated by the sun. Then we would pump water through it for 30 minutes and see how much the water heated up. For my groups design we had a box(the outside of the heater), tin foil(to help reflect light in), seran wrap(to create a green house effect), funnel(to pour the water in to), copper tubing(for the water to go through and be heated up by), a jug(for the water to end up in), felt(insulation around the bottle), and a nozzle(to be able to get the water out of the jug. Our design created 8,363.628 joules of energy
Our third project was the solar angles and how it changes during seasons. This was a very important unit for one of our later projects. We took notes and read about sun angles and how they change depending on what season we are in. All of the stuff we learned went into our reflector design.
Our fourth project was our daylighting design. At the beginning of the project we learned about different daylighting techniques like clerestory windows, skylights, solar tubes, and light shelves. Then we had to design a house based on the things we learned about. We also had to figure how many light bulbs they would use. we would need in the house and the watts they would use. The picture below is our blueprints for the house my group and I designed.
We then started creating a scale model of the house we designed using cardboard and tin foil. Our final model was...
Our fifth project was our site selection project. For this we had to look around our campus for the best site to build a house. We decided which site would be he best spot by rating it on sun/shade ratio, privacy, temperature, noisiness, accessibility, space, camo, sun timed in day, landscape, and wind exposure. We then scored each site from 1-3 based on the what they had. My group and I chose a spot under a couple of trees, a little close to the street, but it had a good amount of sun and shade.
Our sixth project was our materials testing lab. In this project we had to test materials on how much heat they gained and how fast they lose there heat. This lab was to figure out what materials we would use on the interior or exterior of our structure. We tested insulation, roofing, walls, floor, and other items.
Our seventh project was our building design for a cold frame(for our garden) and a reflector panel(for the north window of our solar studio). These are the power points and information about our cold frame and reflector panel.
Our eighth project was our justification project. For this project, we were supposed to answer why would you want to build an efficient home off the grid. We did this by having us all on a pdf and answering questions on the pdf. Here is the link tinyurl.com/k7wl .
Our ninth and final project was our wind turbine. For this we had to create the most efficient wind turbine design and create a model of it. After we built it we then put a fan up to it and figured out how much power it generated. This was a short project, but it was fun learning about wind power and wind turbines.
Our ninth and final project was our wind turbine. For this we had to create the most efficient wind turbine design and create a model of it. After we built it we then put a fan up to it and figured out how much power it generated. This was a short project, but it was fun learning about wind power and wind turbines.
reflection
For the past 2 months, my group and I have been working on these 9 projects. We have had many good things and many bad things happen. Some good things that happened were that we had good communication most of the time and we got everything done on time. Some bad things that happened were our details on our reflector(not all of the details we needed) and we cut it close on some of the deadlines. Some new things that I learned during this process is how to make a set of blue prints and continued learning how to work in a group efficiently. My group and I could work on sharing the leadership role instead of only having one or two people have it. We could also work on some of our communication because sometimes not everyone's ideas got through. There were many peaks and pits during this project. The peaks of our project were our presentations because they were very good and our designs because most of our designs were pretty efficient. Some pits of our project were our timing because some of it was a little close and our details because we didn't get everything that we could have. All in all it was a fun project and I can't wait for our next one.