This is the second unit for my class Urban Planning. The unit itself was titled Power. Throughout it, we’ve researched the purpose and history of circuits. Not only that, but we researched why electricity is important and how we can implement it into our daily lives. We also looked into the war of currents and how it still affects us to this day. The war of currents was an electrical battle between Nikola Tesla with AC currents and Thomas Edison with DC to figure out which current would be used in the world's fair in the upcoming years. AC currents goes in multiple directions while DC only goes in a single direction. We had some guests from ARUP which is a global design firm that works throughout Chicago to provide places for engineers to work and fix environmental issues related to electricity. With these concepts in mind, the goal of this action project is to create a circuit of our own to display how sustainable certain appliances can be in comparison to others. Not only this, but understanding why they are important to us.
I also worked with my partner KJ on this project so here's a link to his blog if you'd like to see his side of this project:
KJ's Blog
"New York City by Night Skyline" by Timo Kohlenberg is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.
To make our circuit, it took a lot of trial and error. At many points, there were only certain parts of our circuit that worked or didn't, making it complicated for each part of our circuit to work in tandem with one another. We began by building a single simple circuit with extra parts attached to it. From there, we shifted to have a series circuit with a parallel circuit flowing outside of it. The switch close to the battery allows all the lights to turn on. While the switch at the back of our circuit allows the fan to be turned on and off.
Here's a slideshow of the process of building our circuit that shows what a sustainable kitchen might look like. This also shows how our circuit might flow in a kitchen that uses sustainable appliances. Here are the other steps we took to create it:
Here's an explanation for each appliance we looked at:
The S2 button switch serves the purpose of turning on all of the main appliances in our kitchen.
The R2 resistor serves as the Maxi-Matic Elite Compact Air Fryer. This air fryer only uses 700 watts per day. This makes it serve as an option to make food in a sustainable way. In comparison to stove tops or air fryers that both use 1500 watts a day.
Our D1 LED serves as the VICNIE LED Flush Mount Ceiling Light. This light only uses 20 watts in a single day allowing for light in the kitchen at a lower wattage. In comparison, the average ceiling light uses 60 watts which is a huge difference in energy.
The L2 light bulb serves as the Costway 24in” single wall oven. With only 2,300 watts in a day, it’s more eco-friendly than other ovens on the market. Most other ovens use 2,000 - 5,000 watts in a day so the oven we’ve chosen is on the lower end of the wattage
The D2 LED serves as the BLACK+DECKER EM720CB7 Digital Microwave Oven using only 700 watts per day. The average microwave uses 900-1,000 watts in a day. When comparing to our microwave there's at least a 200 watt difference which is a lot of energy saved.
Finally the motor being the Briiv Air Filter which is built from 90% renewable materials. Not only this, but it’s extremely durable making it more sustainable than most other air filters and only using 120 watts. The average filter uses 8-56 kwh in a day. Though it uses more than the average appliance, it makes up for it in how renewable it is.
Our design applies to SDG 7.2 which is to increase substantially the share of more eco friendly in the global mix. This is because each appliance we’ve chosen is more eco-friendly than the average version of it. This shows that our kitchen is one of the first to implement so many renewable appliances in different ways. When moving to create a more healthy environment, we should be using these types of appliances along with the new ideas engineers are creating daily.
This project was eye opening for me because it allowed me to see how we use power in different ways. Doing the hands on circuit building was a challenge and my partner KJ and I took 2 days to complete a final circuit. With trial and error, we did eventually complete the circuit. The part that I enjoyed the most was looking at energy efficient appliances that some people use daily. There are also a lot of different companies that are prioritizing being eco-friendly so it is interesting to see how they’ve taken action. If I were to do this project again, I’d want to try building a circuit with a more linear design and seeing how that might affect our design.
Sources:
Briiv Air Filter. Briiv. (n.d.). https://www.briiv.co.uk/products/briiv
Expert advice on improving your home. Today’s Homeowner. (2023, May 4). https://todayshomeowner.com/
Gerhardt, N. (2023, May 9). Energy efficient and eco-friendly appliances for your home. Family Handyman. https://www.familyhandyman.com/list/most-efficient-appliances/
Oz, & Joy. (2023, March 15). 8 eco-friendly appliances to sustainably cook, cool, & clean. Sustainable Jungle. https://www.sustainablejungle.com/sustainable-tech/eco-friendly-appliances/
United Nations. (n.d.). Goal 7 | Department of Economic and Social Affairs. United Nations. https://sdgs.un.org/goals/goal7
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