Guiding Questions

What kinds environmentally friendly technologies have been created?

There is a broad variety of eco-friendly technologies what have been created in the past century. These
technologies go from obtain energy from renewable sources such as movement (e.g. you wont believe
this but there is a technology which changes the energy created from boobs bouncing into electricity to
charge your phone), sun energy (tents which load up during the day and the energy stored from the sun
is then used to power the lights in the tent), wind energy, hydro-power (cars now use power from water
to run) etc. Other areas which have improved are areas of biodegradable materials being used which
can easily disintegrate after being used without the need to burn them or through them into the ocean.
Or items made from recycled materials such as speakers made from old newspapers, cloth produced
from older and broken cloth etc.

What are the most electricity consuming items in a household?
Device
Typical
consumption
Cost
per hour
Heat pump or central air 15,000 watts $1.50
Water heater or clothes drier 4,000 watts 40 cents
Water pump 3,000 watts 30 cents
Space heater 1,500 watts 15 cents
Hair drier 1,200 watts 12 cents
Electric range burner 1,000 watts 10 cents
Refrigerator 1,000 watts 10 cents
Computer and monitor 400 watts 4 cents
Light bulb 60 watts 0.6 cents
Each kilowatt hour coasts 10 cents on average depending on your location.

How much electricity is needed to power the cooling and heating of a school cafeteria (36 m X 22.5
m)?
The electricity need lies around 15 000 watt per hour. So to power the heating and cooling for 1 school
day this would sum up to be 105 000 watt which would be need to be produced. Of course this value
varies due to the weather conditions as there may be times of the year where no heating or cooling is
needed.
How do energy floor tiles work?

The floor tiles I have been looking at are called Pavegen as these tiles have already been used in various
places such as schools, at marathons, festivals etc. and have proven they work. These tiles harness the
kinetic energy we produce through our walking, jumping or running and changes this into electric
energy. When you step on a floor tile the rubber surface flex 5 millimeters and through this then can be
converted into electricity which can then either be stored in a lithium polymer battery (for a maximum
of 3 days) or converted in 2.1 watt- hours of electricity.





How much electricity do these floor tiles produce?
One step on the energy converting tiles creates an average of 2.1 Watts of electricity (this depends on
weight of the person). If we assume that every person in the cafeteria spends 15 to 20 minutes in the
cafeteria and in this time takes about 60 steps we can create 3612 Watts (with one tile, if energy body
would only walk over that one tile) of energy which we can combine with the electricity extracted from
the sound pollution in order to power the heating and cooling systems. The tile has a light up circle in
the middle of it as this attracts more people to step on it as they get a reaction for the action. This uses 5
% of the electricity and the rest 95% can be stored in a battery or directly fed to the appliance where it is
need. Each step creates enough electricity keep an LED powered street lamp lit for 30 seconds, this
doesnt sound like much but when adding up the steps on each person and the amount of people which
would walk through the cafeteria (500 students, teachers, cleaning staff etc.).

How environmentally friendly are the floor tiles?
Pavegen tiles are very eco-friendly. They are designed to have a very low carbon footprint as all the
rubber for the top surface is created from used to create these tiles are from recycles truck tires or soles
of Niki shoes. The casing is made from marine grade stainless steel and recycle polymer with low carbon
concrete. 80% of the polymers used in the other parts of the tiles can be recycles. Even during the
process of manufacturing the pavegen tiles are eco-friendly as they are created within 200 miles of the
companys main office reducing transportation and assembly waste. The life time of the tiles are
estimated to 20 million steps or in short 5 years.

How many people walk through the cafeteria every lunch?
There are around 500 students, 20 teachers and 20 cafeteria staff in the cafeteria every lunch time.

How expensive are the energy floor tiles?
There is no exact price mentioned of these tiles as they are not yet being produced on mass but the
designer, Kemball-Cook, is positive that he could get the price down to $50 a tile once he started
manufacturing on a larger scale, as the price has already dropped by 70% in the last year.

How many tiles would we need to cover the electricity needs? How much would this cost?
We would need to install about 40 to 50 tiles. The coast for this would lie around 2000 to 2500 USD.

How much noise is produced in a cafeteria in general?
The amount of noise can go up to 85 decibels.

How do you turn sound waves into usable electricity (sound energy to electric energy)? (microphone
technologies)?
There has been a technology developed to do exactly this. The inventors of this technology want to put
this technology on the faade of houses so they can harness the noise pollution of a busy street. In this
technology, small strands of Zinc oxide is placed in between two electrodes. When sound waves hit the
pad which is placed on top of the electrodes the vibrations cause the zinc oxide wires to compress and
release creating an electrical current which can then be used to charge a battery. The prototype of the
technology was able to convert sound of around 100 decibels to generate only 50 millivolts of electricity.
This technology is still being researched.


Works Cited

http://www.acoustics.org/press/143rd/Bridger.html
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/energy/2012/05/120518-floor-tiles-turn-footfalls-to-
electricity/
http://home.howstuffworks.com/appliances/energy-efficient/question272.htm
http://www.apparentlyapparel.com/2/post/2011/06/new-technology-converts-sound-waves-into-
electricity.html
http://www.soundproofcow.com/Cafeteria-Soundproofing/
http://inhabitat.com/award-winning-pavegen-floor-tiles-will-use-energy-from-footsteps-to-light-up-uk-
shopping-center/pavegen7/
http://www.pavegen.com/technology#sthash.e9mDeOMb.dpuf
http://www.gizmag.com/pavegen-kinetic-energy-tiles-kickstarter/25633/pictures#1
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/energy/2012/05/120518-floor-tiles-turn-footfalls-to-
electricity/
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/10/13/tech/innovation/pavegen-kinetic-pavements/
http://inhabitat.com/award-winning-pavegen-floor-tiles-will-use-energy-from-footsteps-to-light-up-uk-
shopping-center/pavegen7/
Design Brief
I am going to create a Sketch of an eco-friendly cafeteria using google sketch-up. The cafeteria will use
technologies in order to reduce the electricity provided through the use of non-renewable resources in
order to help lower the global carbon footprint and help with the change to a ecofriendly world. We must
do this to stop global warming and through this stop us killing our own planet. The technologies which I
will be using in the cafeteria are energy producing tiles. These tiles use the kinetic energy of people
walking over them to change this into usable energy. When you step on a floor tile the rubber surface
flex 5 millimeters and through this then can be converted into electricity. One step on the energy
converting tiles creates an average of 2.1 Watts of electricity (this depends on weight of the person). If
we assume that every person in the cafeteria spends 15 to 20 minutes in the cafeteria and in this time
takes about 60 steps we can create 3612 Watts (with one tile, if energy body would only walk over that
one tile) of energy which we can combine with the electricity extracted from the sound pollution in
order to power the heating and cooling systems. The tile has a light up circle in the middle of it as this
attracts more people to step on it as they get a reaction for the action. This uses 5 % of the electricity
and the rest 95% can be stored in a battery or directly fed to the appliance where it is need. Each step
creates enough electricity keep an LED powered street lamp lit for 30 seconds, this doesnt sound like
much but when adding up the steps on each person and the amount of people which would walk
through the cafeteria (500 students, teachers, cleaning staff etc.). We would need to install about 40 to
50 tiles. The coast for this would lie around 2000 to 2500 USD. The tiles are very eco-friendly. They are
designed to have a very low carbon footprint as all the rubber for the top surface is created from used to
create these tiles are from recycles truck tires or soles of Niki shoes. The casing is made from marine
grade stainless steel and recycle polymer with low carbon concrete. 80% of the polymers used in the
other parts of the tiles can be recycles. Even during the process of manufacturing the pavegen tiles are
eco-friendly as they are created within 200 miles of the companys main office reducing transportation
and assembly waste. The life time of the tiles are estimated to 20 million steps or in short 5 years. In
order to support this on days were maybe a lot of people are absent or not as much electricity is produced
sound technology will be inserted into the walls of the cafeteria. This technology changes the vibrations of
sound waves of people talking, things moving etc. and converts this into usable energy. The energy
produced through both technologies will be used to power the heating and cooling of the cafeteria
meaning 105 000 watts will have to be produced each day. In order to store the extra energy, 4 lithium
polymer batteries will be installed so this energy can be used to support the cafeteria when more energy
is needed (really hot or cold days for example).

Design Specifications
The Cafeteria will have 50 tiles inserted into the floor
The Cafeteria will have sound technology inserted in the pillars
The tiles will be distributed throughout the cafeteria not just in one place
The tiles will be orange
The cafeteria will have the dimensions 36 m X 22.5 m
The cafeteria will resemble the one in WISS (same location of exists, pillars etc.)