Day Fourteen
Today was the day of the presentations.
The order was: Alex, Daniel, Justin, Me, Samar, Ayush.
It was fun presenting the work I did over the course of this camp and also seeing the others' final presentations as well.
Yanchen and Umkar also presented their work with Alexa towards the end, too and I thought that it was pretty cool. Their project is basically the same as ours, except you ask Alexa for the data of a room you want. It works like this: you talk to Alexa and Alexa then talks to Amazon Web Services. Amazon Web Services then goes to Andover Town WiFi and communicates with the servers that have all the room information. After the information is received, Alexa outputs her response. In order to do this, Umkar and Yanchen had to put a port in the firewall with the permission of the town, and allow Amazon Web Services to access it. Pretty cool, but I question the practicality of the project on a daily basis.
Today was a good day, kind of the highlight of the camp due to the fact that we showcased our work to town office members and other important people. Here is the paper I wrote about my whole camp experience: https://goo.gl/vMpnK3
The order was: Alex, Daniel, Justin, Me, Samar, Ayush.
It was fun presenting the work I did over the course of this camp and also seeing the others' final presentations as well.
Yanchen and Umkar also presented their work with Alexa towards the end, too and I thought that it was pretty cool. Their project is basically the same as ours, except you ask Alexa for the data of a room you want. It works like this: you talk to Alexa and Alexa then talks to Amazon Web Services. Amazon Web Services then goes to Andover Town WiFi and communicates with the servers that have all the room information. After the information is received, Alexa outputs her response. In order to do this, Umkar and Yanchen had to put a port in the firewall with the permission of the town, and allow Amazon Web Services to access it. Pretty cool, but I question the practicality of the project on a daily basis.
Today was a good day, kind of the highlight of the camp due to the fact that we showcased our work to town office members and other important people. Here is the paper I wrote about my whole camp experience: https://goo.gl/vMpnK3
Day Thirteen
Today we spent the whole day working on presentations as well, but since I was done with mine I worked on the challenge problem.
Ms. DiBenedetto, our computer science teacher, came in today so see our presentations since she could not make it to the final one on Thursday. She and Mr. Navkal gave us some feedback on how to improve our presentations. I learned that there are going to be a lot of people at tomorrow's presentation, around 25. I think there are going to be people from Schneider Electric and the Andover Public Schools town office.
Ms. DiBenedetto, our computer science teacher, came in today so see our presentations since she could not make it to the final one on Thursday. She and Mr. Navkal gave us some feedback on how to improve our presentations. I learned that there are going to be a lot of people at tomorrow's presentation, around 25. I think there are going to be people from Schneider Electric and the Andover Public Schools town office.
Day Twelve
I spent all of today working on and finishing my final presentation. Nothing really eventful occurred. I wrote up my presentation paper and also finished up the slideshow. This is a pretty short and uneventful blog post because the work I did today was also uneventful. Towards the end of the day I began to work on the challenge problem. I haven't made any significant progress yet and I am still working on it. Here is my presentation:
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Day Eleven
Today we went to the Water Treatment plant. Before that, we had a brief introduction into the system of how Andover gets water from the Merrimack River, and then pumps it to Haggetts Pond, which then gets pumped to water tanks that have high elevation. The tanks have high elevation so that the town can use gravity to distribute the water to homes and buildings instead of having to use electricity to do it. I made a Geo-sheet of the locations of Andover's four water tanks that hold 1-3 million gallons each. Here is the link: https://www.geosheets.com/map/s:2JMK2P64/Water-Tank-Map
After lunch we went to the water treatment plant for a visit and tour. We learned about the complex process that the water goes through before arriving at our sinks. There was a ton of logistics behind what the water treatment plant does. For example, the plant has a state certified lab that takes in water samples from multiple towns and also performs microbiology and chemical compound tests. The water treatment plant actually does a lot other than the treatment of water. If I wrote all that it could do, I would be writing for an hour or two, but I will give you a simple summary of the process that our water goes through in order to reach our sinks.
Firstly, the water is taken from the Merrimack River, purified, and pumped into Haggetts Pond. Haggetts Pond merely acts as a sort of reservoir for the water before it is pumped in for treatment. The Merrimack is a pretty dirty river, hence why the water is purified before being stored at Haggetts. When water is needed, it is pumped from Haggetts into the water treatment plant. The plant then takes the water and adds ozone to it to raise the pH. Then two compounds are added: powder activated carbon and aluminum sulfate. The mixture of compounds take the waste particles in the water such as sticks and dirt and clump together in what is called floc. The water is rapidly mixed, and this stage is called the floculation and coagulation stage. I also think it is called Rapid-Mixing, I don't quite remember well, but I am more sure that the first is correct. After this stage, it is pumped inside, purified, and stored in a clear well. It is then pumped to one of the water tanks in Andover.
Here are some pictures I took at the water treatment plant (hover over them for more info):
After lunch we went to the water treatment plant for a visit and tour. We learned about the complex process that the water goes through before arriving at our sinks. There was a ton of logistics behind what the water treatment plant does. For example, the plant has a state certified lab that takes in water samples from multiple towns and also performs microbiology and chemical compound tests. The water treatment plant actually does a lot other than the treatment of water. If I wrote all that it could do, I would be writing for an hour or two, but I will give you a simple summary of the process that our water goes through in order to reach our sinks.
Firstly, the water is taken from the Merrimack River, purified, and pumped into Haggetts Pond. Haggetts Pond merely acts as a sort of reservoir for the water before it is pumped in for treatment. The Merrimack is a pretty dirty river, hence why the water is purified before being stored at Haggetts. When water is needed, it is pumped from Haggetts into the water treatment plant. The plant then takes the water and adds ozone to it to raise the pH. Then two compounds are added: powder activated carbon and aluminum sulfate. The mixture of compounds take the waste particles in the water such as sticks and dirt and clump together in what is called floc. The water is rapidly mixed, and this stage is called the floculation and coagulation stage. I also think it is called Rapid-Mixing, I don't quite remember well, but I am more sure that the first is correct. After this stage, it is pumped inside, purified, and stored in a clear well. It is then pumped to one of the water tanks in Andover.
Here are some pictures I took at the water treatment plant (hover over them for more info):
Day Ten
Today we looked at a graphic made by The New York Times that visualized the significance of Apple's one trillion dollar value, comparing it to dozens of other companies around the world to show just how gigantic Apple has become. I personally am not surprised because in my opinion, Apple is one of the smartest companies in the world. Their business plan is extremely well thought out, product quality and design is very good, and their marketing is genius. I am not surprised that Apple hit one trillion, and also glad that a company that somewhat respects the consumers' privacy was the one to do it.
I spent the rest of the time until lunch working on my project. After lunch, we went to Andover High School to take a peek behind the scenes. We went to the following rooms:
1. The boiler room. We were introduced to the massive boilers, storage tanks, and pumps that were there. It was pretty cool since it was my first time in one. The boiler room served to heat the school during winter, with three large pumps in the back that pump it up into the school. The various pumps and engines were very loud, and some pipes were very hot. Very cool boiler room experience.
2. The generator room. This room housed the generator that would power the school during a power outage. There were three massive batteries beside it that were used just to get it starting. Very much a typical generator. Still very cool to learn about, though.
3. The power control room. This room had the information about AHS power usage and also some switches. These large and expensive switches would cut the power to their designated rooms. This room housed one of the Metasys BACnet devices. It was actually the device we used to get the data for our gauge project!
4. The "dirt room" and kitchen. We went around the back of kitchen to get to the dirt room. Pretty cool. The kitchen had various pallets of food supplies, and some random stuff too. On the way to the dirt room I saw a shopping cart, a rusty waffle maker and an engine of sorts. I am sure the engine was used in the circulation of air. The dirt room was a VIP experience because it is a sort of legend in the school. The dirt room was just a room full of dirt. There were names written on the walls of the room, as if to immortalize the student's legacy in the school and experience in the fabled dirt room. It reminded me of the cave paintings that early humans had done, and the whole atmosphere of a large cavernous space with dirt in it contributed to it. Then I turned a nearby corner to find several urinals lined up next to each other. It was a funny experience to see where excess urinals were being stored.
I took a ton of pictures. Here are some of them. There are descriptions on what each component does if you hover over it:
I spent the rest of the time until lunch working on my project. After lunch, we went to Andover High School to take a peek behind the scenes. We went to the following rooms:
1. The boiler room. We were introduced to the massive boilers, storage tanks, and pumps that were there. It was pretty cool since it was my first time in one. The boiler room served to heat the school during winter, with three large pumps in the back that pump it up into the school. The various pumps and engines were very loud, and some pipes were very hot. Very cool boiler room experience.
2. The generator room. This room housed the generator that would power the school during a power outage. There were three massive batteries beside it that were used just to get it starting. Very much a typical generator. Still very cool to learn about, though.
3. The power control room. This room had the information about AHS power usage and also some switches. These large and expensive switches would cut the power to their designated rooms. This room housed one of the Metasys BACnet devices. It was actually the device we used to get the data for our gauge project!
4. The "dirt room" and kitchen. We went around the back of kitchen to get to the dirt room. Pretty cool. The kitchen had various pallets of food supplies, and some random stuff too. On the way to the dirt room I saw a shopping cart, a rusty waffle maker and an engine of sorts. I am sure the engine was used in the circulation of air. The dirt room was a VIP experience because it is a sort of legend in the school. The dirt room was just a room full of dirt. There were names written on the walls of the room, as if to immortalize the student's legacy in the school and experience in the fabled dirt room. It reminded me of the cave paintings that early humans had done, and the whole atmosphere of a large cavernous space with dirt in it contributed to it. Then I turned a nearby corner to find several urinals lined up next to each other. It was a funny experience to see where excess urinals were being stored.
I took a ton of pictures. Here are some of them. There are descriptions on what each component does if you hover over it:
Day Nine
We spent most of today programming as well, with Mr. Navkal introducing Schneider Electric's building analysis dashboard to us during a brief lesson. The dashboard showed the status of some components in the building as well as the air flow, energy usage, etc.
I spent all of today looking at HTML tutorials. I made progress in being able to resize my .svg files and open them in the browser. All I have to add are some on-click buttons and an auto refresh system, and then I will be finished. HTML is a simple language and this shouldn't be too hard.
EDIT: It is 12 AM right now and I can say that HTML is pretty hard to learn. I am jumping right into the middle and not starting from the beginning, so it sort of feels like climbing a mountain blind. I made some progress in making a couple buttons but then I realized I did it wrong so I deleted it all. But I managed to really clean up the code in my Gauge.py file, so that's good...
I spent all of today looking at HTML tutorials. I made progress in being able to resize my .svg files and open them in the browser. All I have to add are some on-click buttons and an auto refresh system, and then I will be finished. HTML is a simple language and this shouldn't be too hard.
EDIT: It is 12 AM right now and I can say that HTML is pretty hard to learn. I am jumping right into the middle and not starting from the beginning, so it sort of feels like climbing a mountain blind. I made some progress in making a couple buttons but then I realized I did it wrong so I deleted it all. But I managed to really clean up the code in my Gauge.py file, so that's good...
Day Eight
We spent most of the day programming, with a couple breaks in between where Mr. Navkal explained new concepts to us, such as using geosheets to put markers on a map (see image).
The other 90% of time I spent coding. I made quite a bit of progress today with trying to refresh the page using python, but I gave up on that once I learned I would need to use JavaScript. Instead, I decided to add kilowatt and dollar and gauges to the project. I had trouble getting the data only from rooms I wanted, and I got some help from Samar and Ayush who showed me how I only needed to add an if statement to the end of the API function in my program.
I finished the day of by beginning to learn html and incorporating the live update feature into my almost-done project.
The other 90% of time I spent coding. I made quite a bit of progress today with trying to refresh the page using python, but I gave up on that once I learned I would need to use JavaScript. Instead, I decided to add kilowatt and dollar and gauges to the project. I had trouble getting the data only from rooms I wanted, and I got some help from Samar and Ayush who showed me how I only needed to add an if statement to the end of the API function in my program.
I finished the day of by beginning to learn html and incorporating the live update feature into my almost-done project.
Day Seven
We began today's class similarly to yesterday's, with a Tedx talk from a woman named Ella Lagé. It focused more on what the individual could do to combat climate change compared to Vish Dhar's Tedx talk. Ms. Lagé explained how if we urge our communities to divest from fossil fuel companies, we can help out a lot too.
We then worked on our projects. I was feeling frustrated with Plotly's gauge and its weird coordinate system, so I decided I would switch to Pygal, which was far more smooth and easy to use. I also discovered that I had been missing a big part of it all! I had forgot that I had a file called ahs_elec.py that gets the Andover High School data live, and prints it out. This came after reading a lot of documentation on API. So I then began to integrate ahs_elec.py into the gauge program.
Also, while we were working on our projects, Omkar and Yanchen came in from IT to discuss the integration of Andover High School's BACnet data into Alexa. I learned that the major problem was that once we asked Alexa for this data, it would communicate with the Amazon Cloud, which would then try to access the town data only to get blocked by the firewall. What we would have to do to get this to work is open up a hole in the firewall, which would then be exposed to viruses.
We then worked on our projects. I was feeling frustrated with Plotly's gauge and its weird coordinate system, so I decided I would switch to Pygal, which was far more smooth and easy to use. I also discovered that I had been missing a big part of it all! I had forgot that I had a file called ahs_elec.py that gets the Andover High School data live, and prints it out. This came after reading a lot of documentation on API. So I then began to integrate ahs_elec.py into the gauge program.
Also, while we were working on our projects, Omkar and Yanchen came in from IT to discuss the integration of Andover High School's BACnet data into Alexa. I learned that the major problem was that once we asked Alexa for this data, it would communicate with the Amazon Cloud, which would then try to access the town data only to get blocked by the firewall. What we would have to do to get this to work is open up a hole in the firewall, which would then be exposed to viruses.
Day Six
We began today's class with watching a Tedx talk by a Phillips Academy student named Vish Dhar. It focused on the effect climate change was having on the world and how the younger generations should be able to slow it down, or stop it. We then talked about Phillips Academy's heating system, and the quirks it had. It is a large system of hot water, with radiators in each building. The hot water flows to each radiator and our to the next, so that by the time the hot water got to the last room, it would be noticeably colder than the first room. We discussed this and decided that a mechanism where rooms could control the hot water flow to their radiator would improve the difference of the temperatures of the water between the first and last rooms.
Next we discussed the importance of clear directions when completing a project, talking about the Google glasses and watches. At the end, Mr. Navkal told us about his plan for the rest of the program. We are going to have a presentation at the end of the camp talking about what we did and what our takeaways were. Before that, we are going to visit Andover High School a couple times to take a look at everything inside.
After lunch, I worked on my plotly gauge, and changed the colors up and read some documentation on how to update .html files. I could not figure out how to update html files at all, so I just focused on integrating the .csv file data into the gauge. I did this for the rest of the day.
Next we discussed the importance of clear directions when completing a project, talking about the Google glasses and watches. At the end, Mr. Navkal told us about his plan for the rest of the program. We are going to have a presentation at the end of the camp talking about what we did and what our takeaways were. Before that, we are going to visit Andover High School a couple times to take a look at everything inside.
After lunch, I worked on my plotly gauge, and changed the colors up and read some documentation on how to update .html files. I could not figure out how to update html files at all, so I just focused on integrating the .csv file data into the gauge. I did this for the rest of the day.
Day Five
Today was a shorter day, and we began our discussion with the analysis of a circuit diagram of Andover High School. It was pretty complex, but gave me a basic understanding of the layout of Andover High School. We also went over the power and energy usage of the school, and how the voltage is controlled. Transformers take in a certain amount of electricity, and output an amount less than what came in. A transformer with 98% efficiency taking 100 watts would output 98 watts, and 2 watts would be given off as heat. We learned that the electricity given off as heat poses a problem in some places due to their vast generation of heat. You spend a ton of money cooling a building while transformers warm it up. After being shown a real transformer in our building, and feeling the radiating heat and stifling hot room it was in, we began to work on our assignments.
Day Four
Today we were shown a Ted talk by Hans and Ola Rosling called How Not to be Ignorant About the World. It presented some surveys that showed the average person's ignorance to the changes occurring in the world, and gave us some tips on how to be better prepared for the future. The part that most related with what we were doing was the part on how they visualized the data to make it easier to understand for the average person. The Gapminder Foundation, a foundation that Hans helped create, aims to combat ignorance by providing intuitive and attractive graphs to make global trends easier to understand.
The above graph is one taken from the Gapminder website. It presents population and salary data of people from countries in the world. It is very intuitive, and see if you can understand it without reading the next couple sentences. The graph is color coded, with different colors representing different continents, and individual lines representing countries in that region. The x-axis represents the daily salary of the people, and the y-axis is the population. I figured all of this out in a couple seconds, and this made me realize there was a sort of scale in data presentation. The more visual and easy to understand a graph is, the less data you can find exactly, and the more exact data you present, the less intuitive it is.
The above picture has some features we planned on adding. The two boxed pieces of text on the left side are the traits we wanted the dashboard to have. We did not want people looking at the dashboard a couple times and then ignoring it for the rest of the year. That is why we wanted it to be interactive, and also have vital information about the school such as schedules, weather, and news along with power and energy usage. This would keep students coming back.
Day Three
The Andover director of facilities came in today and showed us the Palmer Solar Plant and how the town funds it. The town signed a 20 year contract with the solar plant, which then generates electricity to send to National Grid. National Grid then gives the town credits which it can use as a part of their electricity bill. Andover saved about $400,000 this year alone with this contract.
Earlier, we did some programming. Our first assignment was to identify classrooms where the average ppm was over 1000, and we had to exclude data outside of school hours and weekends. This part was pretty foreign to me and I had to watch a couple YouTube videos in order to learn how to do this well. Our next assignment was to identify Andover High School classrooms where the average temperature is above 75 degrees Fahrenheit. We had to exclude all data except for the month of June, weekends, and non-school hours. The final assignment was to find the electricity used by the Collins Center in Andover High School between 11 PM and 4 AM and 24 hours. We compared the energy use year over year and the money too.
This was a new concept for me as we had to filter out data based on the date and time, and I had a lot of fun learning about it too.
Below is the code I wrote for finding the temperature above 75 degrees Fahrenheit for AHS classrooms.
Earlier, we did some programming. Our first assignment was to identify classrooms where the average ppm was over 1000, and we had to exclude data outside of school hours and weekends. This part was pretty foreign to me and I had to watch a couple YouTube videos in order to learn how to do this well. Our next assignment was to identify Andover High School classrooms where the average temperature is above 75 degrees Fahrenheit. We had to exclude all data except for the month of June, weekends, and non-school hours. The final assignment was to find the electricity used by the Collins Center in Andover High School between 11 PM and 4 AM and 24 hours. We compared the energy use year over year and the money too.
This was a new concept for me as we had to filter out data based on the date and time, and I had a lot of fun learning about it too.
Below is the code I wrote for finding the temperature above 75 degrees Fahrenheit for AHS classrooms.
Day Two
Today we were presented with 3D visuals of the air flow systems in Bancroft Elementary School. We also were introduced to IP addresses and the BACnet protocol. BACnet communicates with the sensors and devices, and then we access the server which then communicates with the BACnet to get the data. Afterwards, we began to blog our progress in the camp, and I finished writing my blog for day one, which you can read above.
As an assignment, we had to identify Andover High School classrooms with an average Carbon Dioxide ppm over 1000. We later learned that we had missed a large flaw in the .csv file, and that we had included weekend data in our calculations as well, so we then fixed our programs to exclude weekdays.
As an assignment, we had to identify Andover High School classrooms with an average Carbon Dioxide ppm over 1000. We later learned that we had missed a large flaw in the .csv file, and that we had included weekend data in our calculations as well, so we then fixed our programs to exclude weekdays.
Day One
Today was the introductory day for the camp. We were introduced to the large amounts of energy being used by buildings in our school system and how it was slowly decreasing year by year. Along with that, we were presented energy flow graphs that showed the large amounts of energy loss occurring in the US, with fossil fuels being the main contributors. Natural Gas being the greatest, with only 20% of the burned fuel turning into energy and 80% burning off as heat.
Afterwards, we worked on an assignment where we had to take Andover High School's air quality data from a .csv file, display it, and then write it to a separate file. This first day gave me a general sense of how this camp is going to be over the course of the next few weeks and motivated me to learn more about this topic that I am completely new to. |