Project 2 - Part A - A3 Paper Prototype

Project 2 - Part A - 200 Word Description

Project 2 - Power Usage

Over the holiday I used a power measuring plug I brought from Dicksmiths to keep track of how much power my house hold and I use each day for two weeks. This Mains Power Meter measures an appliances power usage. Displays Voltage, Current, Power, Power used & cost. This is the template that we got giving filled out:

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An Inconvenient Truth

In our lecture we watch the documentary film 'An Inconvenient Truth'. An Inconvenient Truth focuses on Al Gore and on his travels in support of his efforts to educate the public about the severity of the climate crisis. The film documents a Keynote presentation that Gore has presented throughout the world. It intersperses Gore's exploration of data and predictions regarding climate change and its potential for disaster with his own life story.

Gore then begins his slide show on climate change; a comprehensive presentation replete with detailed graphs, flow charts and stark visuals. Gore shows off several majestic photographs of the Earth taken from multiple space missions, Earthrise and The Blue Marble. Gore notes that these photos dramatically transformed the way we see the Earth, helping spark modern environmentalism.

Throughout the movie, Gore discusses the scientific opinion on climate change, as well as the present and future effects of global warming and stresses that climate change "is really not a political issue, so much as a moral one", describing the consequences he believes global climate change will produce if the amount of human-generated greenhouse gases is not significantly reduced in the very near future. Gore also presents Antarctic ice coring data showing CO₂ levels higher now than in the past 650,000 years.

"Each one of us is a cause of global warming, but each one of us can make choices to change that with the things we buy, the electricity we use, the cars we drive; we can make choices to bring our individual carbon emissions to zero. The solutions are in our hands, we just have to have the determination to make it happen. We have everything that we need to reduce carbon emissions, everything but political will. But in America, the will to act is a renewable resource."

The film was interesting and was a good link to what we are studying for our second project. I thought Al Gore's film was an effective in a way that he managed to attract such a general audience attention through his simple visualizations of the data he had collected. He got a clear message across that if appropriate actions are taken soon, the effects of global warming can be successfully reversed.

Vector Smart Meters

Vector smart meter record how much electricity you use over a half hourly basis and then send these accurate readings to your power company remotely. Meaning no more estimated bills and nobody visiting your premises to get the reading.

Understanding your power usage could help you make a significant reduction in consumption in both peak times and off peak times. The meters can be fitted with wireless devices That will talk with compatible household appliances when manufacturers roll these out.

As these appliances become available you can make further savings by efficiently managing and monitoring your energy consumption. For example programming the use of app such a s a dish washer, washing machine dryer or heat pump for off peak times when electricity is cheaper.

You power company will store and analyze the information sent from the meter which you will then be able to access through your mobile phone or on your PC.

With these meters querying your bill will be simple because your power company will be able to analyze your half hourly consumption immediately.

Vector has future proofed its meters to ensure that they can keep pace with the global smart metering developments.If protocols change The meters can be adapted by simply changing the wireless communication devices. Further developments will also allow the same technology to collect readings from your gas and water meters in the same way more control more savings. with vector smart meters you'll have the ability to make the most of this leading edge technology, save money and benefit the environment at the same time.

Class Groups - Energy Usage Research

For our studio we were split into 4 groups and each group was given a certain topic to do some research on. Our group was asked to look at ways of saving energy.  This is a list of thing we came up with through research on the internet and personal ideas:

Tv3 Target - Smart Power Meters

Fair Go is a New Zealand tv program that investigates a wide range of issues that have become a problem for one or many New Zealanders. They try to solve the issues by looking at the information they can find and by contacting the companies and people involved. I recently watch a show that talked about the new Smart meters that will be used in every home in the near future.

 The smart meter is a energy saving device used to lower power bill costs and help people save energy. In a few years the new smart meters could do a huge amount but at the moment the average consumer has no advantage with the smart meter because of the technology that is not yet available. Having a smart meter might let retailers do smart charging like for instance charging more at peak times. These are not optional meters everybody is going to get one in the future. By 2013 all 1/2 a million genesis energy customers will have an advanced or smart meter. Genesis says the benifits are:

• Accurate monthly bills
• No estimates
• No intrusive meter reading for those with internal meters
• The ability to look at your usage online

This is a possible version of what your smart energy home might like in a possible future:

At the center of it will be a device of some sort maybe a computer, maybe not:

 

Your flash new smart appliances will all talk to it wirelessly:

 And the device will talk to your smart meter your new mini turbine, the new solar cells on your roof and a national grid:

Between them those smart devices and appliances will figure out what power is cheapest to use when:

 

 The smart energy future will be a wonderful place but it isn't quite here yet. In the future there will be things like smart appliances come along. E.g Fisher and Paykel will bring out a washing machine that talks to the smart meter and the smart meter will send a message to the was machine that will say " hey washing machine powers cheap right now you better start" and the washing machine will start, do the washing and you wont have to worry about it.

Project 2 - Energy Usage

Project 2 - Intelligent Energy Gadget

In this project you are asked to design an interactive application, service or tool that helps people to reduce their energy consumption. You can either decide to design the interface for an energy monitoring device for a certain user group, or you can design a social networking service that allows comparison of energy usage amongst specific users, or you can address the problem in a more visionary way and come up with your own ideas.

The project is split into three parts: Planning and research, Making the interface and producing a documentation video clip.

Energy consumption in a world wide problem and many ways are being thought of to help the situation. Most of the energy people use today is known as nonrenewable which means you cannot redeem it back, it is gone forever.  Unless drastic action is taken to solve the problem our planet could be under great risk, leading to global warming.

Exibition Description

Project 1 - Swapping Around For New Feedback

For today's session we swapped tutors so that we could get some different feedback and opinions from other people. We let people test our projects and got them to comment on what was good and what could be fixed. I recorded the main points that people said and came up with some solutions to make my project better. Here is what i recorded:

 

Project 1 - Testing Our Designs

For the class we brought in our objects and let other people test them out. We listened and discussed what people thought about everyones projects. This gave us an idea of where we wanted to go from here. I have been suggested to make my design a slightly harder because they were a bit to easy. From hearing this I thought i could make a veriaty of sequences and boxes. Some changes i coulod make are:

- Adding more types of shapes(diamond, retangle, polygone, heart, star or cross?)
- Having a higher numbers of shapes (harder to remember)
- Adding some sort of visual effect?

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Project 1 - Storyboard

Here is my storyboard of my idea I have chosen. It is an instruction of how the user will interact with my project.

Project 1 - Three Best Ideas

Here are my three ideas that I picked from my brainstorm. I choose these three because i thought they could be developed and made into something interesting and fun to interact with. The idea I like is the 1st one (The feeling box) because i think it suits the project task the best and I am interested in how I could make it really effective. I want to make it puzzling to use and try to use a range of senses including touch, see and memory.

Idea 1 - The feeling box where you will feel shapes that you can't see and remember the sequence of them

Idea 2 - Making music from glasses using different materials with a range of textures, weights and thicknesses.

Idea 3 - The changeable chain that creates different shapes and puzzles

Project 1 - Morphologic Box

I have filled in a morphological box based on the object i brought into class today. I used each object and tried to create some crazy things that included each of the senses in the graph. This was to help me be creative and to get me thinking about what I can design that is interesting, original and creative.

Project 1 - Exploring Interactive objects

For studio 2 we had to bring in three item from home that were is some way interactive. They could be toys, everyday useful objects, tool and more. I brought a rubix cube and patterned slinky a mini bowling set with a marble and pins and a bag of knuckle bones. The group brought in all sort of different things from just general things like pencils and torches and other ones were much more complex such as electronic helicopters and wind up moving toys.

Introduction - Project 1

For our first project we have to design an interactive object that will have some of the following senses: see, hear, touch, smell and taste. The object must be innovative and a completly new idea, not I differnt looking version of something that already exists.