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.

Designer and Artist examples

Ermi van Oers, Living Light Plant Energy, nano energy domain, lighting up an led once in a while energy coming from bacteria around the roots	Cambridge Moss Table Plant Energy, non functioning, speculative design

Pauline van Dongen, solar garment
charging your cell phone in 2 days

Pauline van Dongen, solar garment charging your cell phone in 2 days	Sustainable dance floor

Parasites of wasted energy in the city
experimental setups, making use of heat outlets, running streetcars/trams, wind in the metro, wifi energy

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 - big wheels, not for running mice, but running men!

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

A steam engine is making movement from heating
Because we are nowadays doing everything electrically
we have nearly forgotten "movement" as "energy"

Potato power

A potato is so nice!
Because it is a battery with it's own skin
The "power" is a bit limited though, even in series

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

This is called energy harvesting
My hand is not a good source of energy
The heat from my hand connected to ice can make an LED blink
But then it gets cold fast

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

Consider the energy required to heat 1.0 kg of water from 0 oC to 100 oC when the specific heat of water is 4.19 kJ/kgoC:
Q = (4.19 kJ/kgoC) (1.0 kg) ((100 oC) - (0 oC))
    = 419 (kJ) equivalent to 100 kcalori (food units)

Banana 93 kcal =  390 kJ 
One banana = boiling water for one cup of tea (1/4 of a liter)

lifting a mass of 100 kg an elevation of 10 m = 9810  J = 10 kJ
Pro 20 climbing stairs =  5 kcal = 20 kJ. 
15 Minutes Walking around 50 kcal = 200 kJ

Smart phone battery 3300 mAH -> 4Volt * 3.3A * 3600 (seconds) 
= 47.5 kJ roughly equal to about 1/8 of a banana

The energy by mass of gasoline is over 12,000Wh/kg. In contrast, a modern Li-ion battery only carries a bout 200Wh/kg; (https://batteryuniversity.com/index.php/learn/article/comparing_the_battery_with_other_power_sources
But there are all sorts of “problems”, you never get full energy out of something!

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:

Week 1 - Day 3

Starting your own assignment considerations

Making the paper generator

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

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

Pressure sensor

Temperature sensor

Light Sensor

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!