I’ve been looking in depth into the ideas we’d been discussing this semester in Sustainable Energy, thinking a bit more about the essays from The Bottomless Well, and considering my past projects in this class — and above all, I’ve been thinking about what I can do for a final that would have the biggest impact on people; get people really thinking about the possibilities presented by sustainable energy sources and illustrate the need to move away from fossil fuels and towards other methods of gathering energy and forming new habits for the long haul.
Unfortunately, I’m not an engineer. I’m not going to be able to build a new car engine that runs on solar power or create a water heater for your home that runs on dryer lint and bunnies. I am, however, in a really good place to get people’s attention — get people thinking about the concepts we’ve been discussing so heavily in class; get the ball rolling in their minds. To so many people, these concepts are completely outside the scope of their daily lives and usual concerns, but by inching these thoughts a notch or two up in their consciousness, hopefully I can get people to really start considering the possibilities (and on the doom & gloom side, the vital needs and future issues) of using sustainable energy sources.
So, in light of all that, I feel that at this point the best choice for me is to continue forward with the DoorCharger (if that’s what we ended up calling it) project I’d worked on with Matt. Our project was really a proof of concept at best, but based on a good idea: to try to harness the energy we waste in opening and closing the doors on the ITP floor every day. It takes a pretty hefty pull to open these doors — and why not try to make some use of the energy expended in doing so? However, what we ultimately found was that the energy we were gathering from our little prototype was rather low (read: embarassingly miniscule), and that even charging batteries with this setup would have been nearly pointless.
However, all that said and done, there’s a lot to this. The concept alone seemed to get people to thinking, and a prototype that actually produces useful energy would do a million times more. The issue I keep coming back to is the same that Matt and I were stranded on earlier this semester — what the hell can be done with the energy captured? Ideally, a stronger prototype will be able to capture more energy, but it’s still not going to be putting PSE&G out of business by any stretch — I’d like to find something that really fits.
I’d been thinking about the idea of doorchimes — I’ve always loved them, and the concept of making something that could do a little sparkly light display with a note on or near it that said something like “this is powered entirely by the energy you used to open this door. Think of what else you could be doing and how much more you could contribute,” or something far less cheesy. Granted, that’s yet ANOTHER blinky light project (and would require an Arduino which hogs power, or at least a 555), but maybe it’s one worth considering. Of course, it’s also my biggest gripe with the plans the Eyebeam researchers had in mind, but I think I can steer clear of that kind of waste and find something useful. Sound might be a better route (not that you need electricity to get sound, but it might be cool to create some interesting sounds from that). I’ve been thinking about the concept of nightlights and/or simple lights for finding your way at night too, and think that this would tie in perfectly — but I really need to find out if that’s crossing over with Aichen’s plans (and Jane Oh’s work in DfC).
Other ideas have been more problematic — a big confetti explosion everytime the caps reach peak voltage would be hilarious and would illustrate the usefullness of sustainable energy, but I’m not sure that’s the best way to go about this. I’d thought a bit about doing it like an automatic photobooth, where each time the door is opened, a picture is taken — but that gets really big brother-y REAL fast. I think (or at least I hope) that as I continue to research this, a useful out for the energy will present itself, and in the meantime I’ll work on forcing that realization moment to hurry the hell up and get here.
So, as I see it, there’s two distinct ways to approach this. The first would be to continue on as I’ve been going — to make a project that can be attached (in assumedly a non-marring way) to the sliding doors at ITP. This would be obviously preferable in terms of getting people’s attention on the floor and would be best for anything I might submit to the ITP Spring Show. I’m not really all that concerned with getting my stuff into the show, but to consider the volume of traffic that this place sees during those days and then think that a bunch of people would get to look up and see things (hopefully) attached to doors — might really get them thinking.
The second way to do this would be to design something for the standard-issue swinging door that most of us have and use a zillion times daily — that’d certainly be the better way to do this in terms of having something that I can document step-by-step and put on Instructables or something. Not that I know how many people would care to install something like this on their doors, but that’s another project in its own…
I’m thinking the second may be better, as it would certainly be applicable to many more areas of life (and work outside of ITP — something that a lot of ITP projects don’t), but I’d also need to totally change how this thing’s been working so far to get that to happen. I think I need a bit more research in all areas here, but it’s doable.
So, for the ITP-based version, I’d need:
- A motor — the stepper I have should be fine, but others might be better for the energy and condition
- A pile of diodes to do the rectifer bridge setup
- Or, in this case, a standalone rectifier might be better.
- Capacitors to store what’s collected
- Metal and/or wood to make a proper housing for this
- A better wheel/gear setup
- And therefore, a wheel and some gears
Also on the to-do list:
- Talk to someone who knows something useful about gear ratios and all that
- Get back in touch with the two Eyebeam residents; see if they’ve gotten any further or if they’ve instead given up entirely
- See if there’s any way I can get permission to install one of these things on one of the swinging doors in the Tisch lobby (unlikely, but would be sweet if possible)
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