Energy for Designers

Energy for Designers intro

Energy is one of the big challenges of our society to be solved by you as an inventor designer. We will be trying out weird ways to generate and harvest energy, like algae, chocolate, dance floor, mud, a Joule Thief, body heat and ice. We will also compare this to energy made with a potato, a solar cell, a wind turbine. Or just hack and be an energy parasite! With this experience, you will experiment further and connect your source of energy to your design idea. This can be a product, fashion, or a drawing, illustration, a knitting, architecture or a poster.

What is energy?

Cappuccino Energy
47 kcal = 197 kJ (per 100 ml)
12 minutes vacuum cleaning
Smart phone battery: 47.5 kJ = 10 kcal

Big energy for heating houses, cities.

Small energy for your own gadgets and hacks and smart textiles, or charging your smart phones.

Nano energy, from plants, algae, bacteria.

Week 1 - Day 1

The link to the ppt will be provided soon (if this wiki wants to eat my file...)

A dutch windmill in action [1]

How the people in the Middle Ages managed to lift stones to make cathedrals

My toy steam engine is running on a blower [2]

Potato power

Getting energy out of ice and my hand - energy harvesting with a Peltier element [3]

Solar cells of course.

Hand crank devices

Windmill at Delfshaven, impressive if it turns in the wind.

Steam engine toy from 50 years ago. It still functions...compare that to an iMac....

Ingenious charging device, with many lessons to learn from

Solar cell with energy harvesting chip, part of Beam's Portable sensor lab

Plant power (indicating a voltage and a current, but there is no "power")...

Some current

Some voltage

Discussion:
We also talked about this question: What is more interesting 
for a designer...
Something that works or something that maybe (not) works
For example, a solar cell (works) or a plant (who knows if it works)

Week 1 - Day 2

Technical day:

You have to know 2 laws to be able to do some calculations of electrical energy
Ohms law V = I * R
Power law P = V * I
The laws seem to be simple, but the combinations, in series and in parallel for example make life a bit more complicated.

Basic electronics, Soldering

Basic calculations, numbers

Batteries, 3V, 1.5V, power of a battery

Lipo, power cells

Joule Thief experiments - boosting voltage

Potato battery

Mud Algae, plant - cell battery

Bike dynamo set up

Hand charging devices IKEA made

Solar cell examples IKEA

Soldering, ppt:

We made a Joule Thief, boosting device, ppt:

https://makezine.com/projects/power-paper-circuits-with-static-electricity/ https://makezine.com/2013/10/10/new-technology-paper-generators-harvest-static-electricity/

Week 1 - Day 3

Starting your own assignment considerations

Making the paper generator

Finishing the Joule Thief

Week 1 - Day 4

Working on your own

Week 1 - Day 5

Working on your own

Week 2 - Day 1

Tutoring

Intro microcontrollers

Adding sensors to a microcontroller

Week 2 - Day 2

Working on your own

Week 2 - Day 3

Tutoring

Week 2 - Day 4

Working on your own

Finishing, testing

Week 2 - Day 5

Presentation day!