Assignment: Midterm Project 1: Group project proposal
Collaborators:
Assignment: Midterm Project 1: Group project proposal Collaborators: jonyen, neha
 
The Object
The object of our design is to reduce energy consumption within households, while at the same time increasing awareness regarding environmental issues such as global warming. Our goal is to make users more aware of their consumption habits, and how they can modify their behavior to consume less energy, thereby reducing their ecological footprint as well as their energy bill.

The Subject
We intend to target household members between the ages of 15 and 40. Because environmental issues are large in scale, we expect that the actual impact of this tool will be larger than this.

The Tool
We are in the process of exploring the following ideas for our tool:
· A “friendly switch-board” that glows with a smiley face when you turn it off. It could progressively go from yellow-> orange-> red to indicate that it had been in use for a long time. As one turns on more switches on the board, other switches could become more difficult to turn based on an energy quota that is assigned to the board. This tactile feedback could make the user more aware of their use of energy.
· A visual interface that would contain the floor plan of the house and indicate dots for energy-consuming devices. The dots would blink with different colors depending on the use of the device. Green would indicate energy efficiency and red would indicate energy wastage. This interface would also allow the user to interact with it and allow turning on/off a device centrally. This idea is inspired in part by the metaDESK shown in class, and works much like the “top” program in UNIX operating systems.
· A meter one could place between an electronic device and power outlet to give the user feedback on the energy consumed by the device. A sticker could be used for the same purpose, with colors indicating use. There are devices that have this functionality - we could expand on this by providing a tangible user interface for it.
· A projected footprint that could change size (become small or large) to indicate the size of the household’s footprint based on current energy practices. Jars of coins and oil (or representations of such) could also be used to represent the energy and money being expended. This gives the energy use a "tangible bit" to represent it, somewhat like the marbles in the marble answering machine (but perhaps more relevant?).
· A “magic wand” that could detect where electricity is being used. One possible implementation is to check for current flowing across electric devices.
· Intelligent light control - lights in a home “follow” the subjects. When you leave a room, lights turn off and come on in the room entered. This might also be done on a smaller scale, where smaller (more efficient) lights would illuminate those areas in use. Timers and scheduled activities could be signified using lights as well.
· A “light timer” to gauge how long one is in the shower to monitor water consumption.