EGR 100 Design Laboratory #3: Experiments with Model Buildings Preliminary calculations due on Friday, October 5, at the

beginning of Lab Final report due on Friday, October 12, at the beginning of Lab In this project, you will. Design and build a simple model building Learn to use AutoCAD for rapid prototyping (optional) Build a simple temperature sensor circuit for the Propeller chip Write a SPIN program to measure temperature and display it on a PC Learn to use MATLAB to plot data Learn about heat transfer, transients, and steady-state Design and conduct one or more of your own experiments Write a scientific lab report Overview In this creative two-week design lab, you will greatly expand your technical and analytical skills. You will work with your partner to design and build some sim ple model buildings and then analyze their energy use. To accomplish this, you w ill use your new skills with programming and electronics to build a powerful ins trument - a digital thermometer that can measure and print temperatures at preci se time intervals. Microcontrollers like the Propeller chip are extremely versatile tools; one low cost chip can replace tens of thousands of dollars of conventional instruments. You will use your custom digital thermometer to measure precisely how the temper ature inside your box house changes as you add heat with a miniature electric fu rnace. From this data, you will be able to calculate a thermal resistance, Rth, for your house, which can be used to estimate how much energy your building wou ld use at different times of year. You will then design some experiments of your own and write up the results in the form of a scientific report. During the second week of the lab, you will develop your own experiments for you r house. Some possibilities for self-directed experiments include studying how the following factors change Rth and therefore energy use: Insulation amount, type, and location Size and location of intentional air leaks; Scale of the model building Size and location of windows or doors; Wind speed, direction, or a vegetation windscreens Building shape and form You will need to carefully control your experiments by changing one variable at a time. For example, if want to see the effects of both windows and insulation, add one first and then the other. This is to say, be careful to keep all the p arameters fixed during experiments, except for the one you are changing for that phase of your experiment. (Accidentally creating a new air leak while you are m odifying a window, for example, would invalidate your results.) Finally, always generate a hypothesis (and write it in your log book) before conducting an exper iment. If you are adding more insulation, for example, you might anticipate how Rth and energy use will change. If you know the effect of adding one window, you might hypothesize about the exact effect of adding another. Experiments are gre at fun and will challenge your understanding of the course material. Many will n ot work out exactly as expected, and this is one of the best ways to learn to th ink about what you expect as a result, and then figure out why the behavior was different from what you expected. Creating and Characterizing Model Buildings Week 1 As a starting point, each team will build a simple model building using tape, ca rdboard, and glue your first pass will probably be simply paper and tape. This B ox House should be simple with no windows or doors. However, you are strongly enc ouraged to think about form, to get ready for future class projects. What type o f building are you, or will you be, designing (a school, a home, a hospital, a b usiness, etc.). Is it a particular historic building, your own house or dorm, a classic style, or a creation entirely of your imagination? You should view the

model as a 3-dimensional sketch with a scale of approximately 1:100 (i.e., if t he real building will be 10 m tall, your model should be 10 cm tall). As a rule of thumb, your model should be made from 6-10 individual pieces of car dboard, should be in the range of 10-20 cm in each dimension, and be closed on a ll sides. It should have at least (and not much more than) a 1 cm x 5 cm hole on the bottom or other suitable opening to allow you to insert the heating element and temperature probe. To experiment with the design, you may want to quickly m ake a prototype using just paper, scissors, and tape. Week 2 For the self-directed experiments in the second part of this lab, you may want t o use more elaborate materials and designs. For example, you can use cardboard a nd paper to create air spaces, thin foam for insulation, acetate for windows, an d any other materials you can purchase or find. You may also want to use AutoCAD to design and cut the chipboard parts for your buildings. While using AutoCAD i s optional for this lab, it can save you time when making complex parts. See the AutoCAD_MiniTutorial on the class web site for more information. Some experimen ts, such as measuring the effect of wind speed, may require you to find your own tools (in this case a fan). Susan Froehlich and your instructor may also be abl e to provide some materials and helpful advice. Understanding the Hardware and Software To conduct your experiments, you will build a temperature logger that prints dat a to the PC screen. Instructions on how to build the circuit and program the Pro peller chip to read temperature are provided in the document Datasheet_AD592.doc . Instructions on how to print to the PC screen are provided in the Tutorial_Pri ntClock.doc. Before coming to lab, you should carefully study both documents. You should also type in (and save to your H drive) the example programs in the datasheet and tu torial, and have a plan for creating your combined program to measure temperatur e and print it to the HyperTerminal. Building the Temperature Logger The primary goal of the first Friday lab session (10/28) is to build and calibra te a temperature data logger. This new instrument should measure temperature eve ry 30 seconds (using the AD592 sensor) and print the temperature on the PC scree n using Hyper Terminal. Essentially, you will modify the more accurate version o f the clock program (found in Tutorial_PrintClock.doc) and embed in it the tempe rature measurement program from Datasheet_AD592.doc. You will also need to under stand the tutorial and datasheet well. You will also need to be inventive and pe rsistent. A good strategy is to get the sample code working first and then modif y it one step at a time (always testing as you go). It will also save you time a nd frustration if you carefully avoid typos and think carefully about your progr am with your partner before you begin typing. Using the Example MATLAB Program Matlab is a powerful data analysis program that is used throughout science and e ngineering. For this lab, you will use Matlab simply to plot your temperature da ta and save the plot as a JPEG image for your report. To open Matlab, simply cop y the Matlab_PlotExample.m program from the website to your H-drive and double c lick on its icon (or start Matlab and open it from within the Matlab application ). The comments in the program explain how it works and show how you can modify the program to plot your own data. The two-page Matlab_MiniTutorial (also on moo dle) is a bit more involved, but will be helpful for understanding the math oper ators. If you are having difficulty with Matlab, please feel free to ask the cou rse tutors or your instructor for help in getting started. Conducting Experiments Caution: The heating element used in these experiments can become hot enough to burn you or even start a fire. Do not touch the element when it is hot. Do not w rap the element in any materials or otherwise confine it. Never leave an operati ng heater unattended. Once your temperature logger is working and your Box House is built, you are rea dy to conduct your first experiment. In general, you will complete most experime nts after the lab session when the room is less crowded and you do not have to w

ait for the electric heating element (currently there three furnaces for our cla ss). Week 1 For your first experiment, you will heat your Box House using the electric eleme nt. You will allow your model to reach its steady-state temperature and then wri te down the differential temperature (Tin-Tout). You will use this information t o calculate Rth and estimate how much energy your model would require to run in an outdoor environment. As part of this effort, you will need to calculate exactly how much power (in Wa tts) the heating element delivers. Using the relationship for electrical power ( P = IV) and Ohm's Law (V=IR), you can easily solve for P as a function of V and R only. V can be measured with the Digital Volt Meter (DVM) when the heating ele ment is on and should be approximately 6 Volts. R can be measured when the heati ng element is off and unplugged from the power supply. The approximate value of R is also printed on the resistor itself. Note that the electrical resistance, R , is completely different from Rth (the R-value); be careful not to confuse the two. Week 2 Once you have successfully measured Rth on your Box House, recorded temperature data, and plotted it in MATLAB, you are ready to design and carry out your own e xperiment. Keep in mind that you do not need to develop additional skills, but s imply apply what you have already learned to a question that interests you. Some ideas to get you started are listed in the overview section above. Assignments and Deadlines The memo can be one (1) per team, but the final lab report should be individual. Memo for Friday, October 5, at the beginning of lab, using the memo format from the heat capacity memo (note the text should be no more than one page, but the photo, computer program, etc, will make this memo longer than one page) A photograph or drawing of your first Box House A printed copy of your SPIN temperature program that prints the temperature to t he HyperTerminal. A Matlab plot showing temperature rising from the initial (ambient) temperature to the final, steady-state value A calculation of Rth for your Box House An estimate of heating needed to keep the model at 25 C when Tout = - 10 C A short plan for the self-directed experiment of Week 2 Final Lab Report for Friday, October 12 (at the beginning of lab) Scientific Lab Report (see details below) Lab Report to Hand In (see posted guidelines as well) The deliverable for this lab is a short scientific report that summarizes your e xperiments, discusses your results (answers the questions above), and draws conc lusions. As a general guideline, your report should be 4-6 pages in length. This includes approximately two pages of pure text with several figures and drawings (inserted neatly into the text) and an appendix (with your computer programs an d raw data). The report should be organized, well-written, and have proper gram mar and spelling. To make your report more professional, you should write in the third person passive voice (e.g. "The box house was first heated to 25 C") rath er than the first person active voice (e.g., "We first heated the house to 25 C" ).