Circuit Appliances

This is the 2nd Action Project of our Urban Planning class. In this Unit, we learned about electricity, AC and DC, the War of the Currents (Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla), energy, circuits, and how to be environmentally conscious, regarding our energy consumption. We had two FE guests from Farr Associates who came to talk to us about their work and focused a lot on energy consumption and emissions, specifically carbon. They also talked about their work to find efficient solutions on how to reduce the number of carbon emissions needed to halt the damaging effects of Climate Change. Throughout all the work from this unit, I am most proud of my understanding of the material, along with our experiments with building circuits. For this project, we were challenged to research energy-efficient appliances and further create a home/room, including these appliances. We also have a circuit kit with two batteries, two swtiches, and two light bulb holders. Our additional task was to make a parallel circuit with a third resistor (lightbulb) and to figure out how to make it connect. Without actually being able to build a model to scale, we used our circuits to represent each energy-efficient appliance. Below you will see an explanation of my work and my process. Enjoy!

For my house, I am modeling a basement laundry room. In the room, there is a Costway Washer and Dryer, and an Energy Star certified ceiling lightbulb. The light bulbs represent each energy efficient appliance, the main switch turns on the light, and the parallel switch gives power to the Washer and Dryer. I hope you enjoy seeing my process!

 

In conclusion, I had a lot of fun doing this project. The hardest part was probably that the building process took me 4 hours - don't ask me how or why, I'm not sure. I was mainly trying to plan everything, where to connect the wires, and placing furniture. I also had to start over on building my circuit because I was trying to get the third light bulb to stay and the circuit fell apart. I ended up getting it to stay by using a paperclip and a rubber band! Thank you for taking the time to read my project!