DESCRIPTION FOR PROJECT 2

DESCRIPTION – E FOR ENERGY

I am going to make an application on Ipod Touch. It is for sure I will aim to Ipod Touch or Iphone users, because I see more and more people with Apples products (Ipod, Iphone…). Furthermore, applications on Ipod Touch can be compatible with Iphone or even Ipad.

My idea is simple and the only need is a Bluetooth device connect to the household energy meter. In my opinion, if I provide a lot of information such as : each areas you have separate information, how much energy an application used, … people will get bored looking at them anyways no matter how interesting they look like. To me, “simple is the best”. At the very first, people need to choose their favorite things they really want to buy (a list with tons of things, I will make this with wide range of choices). Those choices will be reminded each month to “refresh” feeling from users. The idea is the application will provide a very common way of showing information about how much energy the user’s household used in column graphs and pie graphs with lots of numbers. It will be boring just looking at those graphs. However, this smart application will calculate the money (the energy cost will always up-to-date through the Internet) and equalize the money to your favorite “so-wanna” buy things you have chosen. For example, I really want steak meals, an Ipad and tomatoes, and I use $500 for this month, so it will be 5 steak meals, oh well not enough for an Ipad and 15 kg of tomatoes.

Furthermore, I think Apple’s products users intend more to the elegant and glossy design. I need to make lots of good design in order to attract them, otherwise users won’t care just a bit. The alarm system when users overuse power and the reminder every month will be well-designed.

PROTOTYPE FOR PART A PROJECT 2

ROUGH INITIAL CHOSEN IDEA

An Ipod Touch (can be compatible with Ipad, Iphone) product

Menus an choices

An example for the most important part - information for energy comsumption

I will create a Ipod Touch application (can be compatible with other Apple's products : Ipad, Iphone...). Through a bluetooth device connected to your household power meter, it will send information about how much energy you use for a month. At the very first, users need to choose their favorite things, or the most buying-wanted ( I will provide a wide variety of things...). From that, the application will calculate users' total money cost for energy consuming and equalize to favorite things' prices or how many of them you can get.

VERY ROUGH IDEAS COME UP

Lots of people like raising pet, why not for a "virtual pet"

Puzzle-typed game, make the power saving duty is more interesting ^_^

I bet people using facebook is countless, this will get popular

POWER METER - DAIRY

I bought a power monitor at the Bunnings. Through the holiday, I did try it with my own computer, my desk lamp and my external hard drive. I still don't get how to the monitor by the way, just very little. So I will write down what I've gotten.

- My computer - Core 2 quad - 300W power source
19.48 pm : 77.2W | over 1 hour : 69.2W - 79.8W, sometimes it jumped up 83.2 (20.48 pm) | 20.48 : 0.2kWh ($2.04 - I don't understand where the money is calculated from?)

- Lamp - small black 30W
Beginning : 0.16 AMP (I don't know what it is???) | 36.1W - 36.4W
After 1 hour 4 minutes : 36.5W - 36.8W
After 1 hour 30 minutes : total money costs $1.14; and about kWh, zero zero zero @_@

- External Hard Drive - 1.5Tb Seagate
3h05 pm : 3.3W | 229V - 234V
6.15 pm : total cost $3.13
3.55 am next day : total cost $12.51
10.05 pm next day : total cost $30.98
I forgot all the time to plug it out, so the money up to now = $191.54, I would say "Wow!" After about one week.

OTHER GROUPS' USEFUL INFORMATION

I learnt some ways to reduce energy usage
- Don't use cars : cars will consume lots of gasoline, we all know that oil is more and more reducing.
- Plant trees : I don't get this idea, just wrote it down, I reckon this one kind of environment saving rather than saving energy
- Turn light off : This is always true, lots of power is wasted because of people letting the light on no matter what.

RESEARCH PROJECT 2 - PART 2

I continued deeply researching into New Zealand energy industry. I just noted some interesting information...

- powerswitch.org.nz :
        > Electricity prices change due to number of reasons, including the overall competitiveness of the retail market, demand & supply levels, the cost of new generation, natural gas prices & delivering power cost.
        > Strong demand for electricity in the 1960s & 1970s, the growth has required new power stations to be built ==> these are more expensive than existing ones.
        > Around a quarter of country's electricity is generated using natural gas, the cost of gas increased sharply.

- www.nationmaster.com/country/NZ-new-zealand/ene-energy :
        > 2005 : Oil comsumption - 7 million tons (#53 in the world)
        > 2005 : Oil barrels daily - 151 thousands
        > 1999 - 2000 : usage per person - 4.86 (#8 in the world)
        > 2004 : Electric power consumption 36295 million kW (#51 in the world)
        > 2000 : $0.79 per litre Oil consumption

More research from my group :
   - Wind power generates 539mW provides enough energy for 160000 NZ house homes (3%) per year
Almost of my group information is the same as mine.

RESEARCH PROJECT 2 - PART 1

I made some kind of deep research into New Zealand energy, the information may be old but still useful for me to realize some idea for Project 2.
- Wikipedia.com : New Zealand with small population & abundant natural resources, is a net importer of energy. Energy importation is in the form of oil products.
New Zealand consumption is 4.53 TOE (Tonne of oil equivalent) per capita
- I forgot the source for this one : Energy consumption in 2009 (PJ)
       - Coal = 18.4 | - Oil 252 | - Gas = 57.9 | - Renewables = 61 | - Electricity = 140 | -- Total = 529.3

- In term of energy intensity, New Zealand is just a little bit lower than the global average.
- 2007, electricity costs 25 cents per unit

- Some examples : application household
            ... standard size family fridge | standby 5W | running 150W
            ... Computer - Core 2 Duo | standby 12W | running 200W

- New Zealand homes account for about 12% of the country's total energy use. In 2008, $2.5 billion was spent just for electricity.

- June, 2009 : average family household energy
         | 30% water heating | 29% space heating | 12% others use electricity | 11% fridge | 8% lighting |
         | 7% cooking | 4% other appliances

LECTURE 7

Today's lecture, we got 2 guests : Leon Gurevitch and Kah Chan. They come to talk about their recent working project on energy saving. It was kind of interesting, but quite long, I think just for me ^^! However, I could visualize much about how we should design for our own interface to help people save as much energy as possible. Thanks them for the help.

LECTURE 6

Today, we watched the movie called "An Inconvenient Truth".
I would say it was a very good movie, I meant not that kind of movies with lots of actions and interesting scenes, but it gave me a big visual look at our global problem "global warming". The causes are common, by manufacturing things and using energy, we are creating tons and tons of carbon dioxide go straight into the ozone layer.
Furthermore, the graph which the lecturer showed in the movie was incredibly surprising. In 50-year period, only in the US, it is not my best to talk about math and stuffs but I can see the slope on the graph go up unstoppably with very high angle. The fact is the Earth is in risk, it is changed much everyday, as strong since 50 years back here. For example, lots of beautiful, giant ice glaciers around the world are losing or even distinctive, then now showing a kind of desert-looking with no water or living things on it.
This is a real warning for us to start to think about our energy consuming and think about the environment (I know the scientists thought ages ago, but for us people now is the time to think about them)