The Key to an Energy Efficient Home

For this unit of our STEAM course, Urban Planning, we took a deeper look into circuits, circuit boards, energy efficient products, Nikola Tesla, and more. We started off by learning about Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison with their participation in the War of the Currents.  We then continued on and learned about direct and alternating currents, created by these two, and understood how the devices we use today are powered by currents like these. We looked into circuit boards and diagrams. The symbols that electricians use make diagrams simple and easy to understand. We learned about these because we would need them in a bit for our action projects. We looked into what electricity is exactly and how it is created. We had a Zoom call with an FE guest, Jaclyn Marcus, an architectural designer. We were able to ask questions from how lighting can affect a person's mood to what inspired them to become a designer, etc. These answers would help us when it came to our AP. For this AP, we had to create a circuit board that would power energy efficient appliances throughout a home that we created. Look through my presentation to learn more!



To conclude, I think this project allowed me to test out how far I could go in regards to creativity and design. I saw myself trying to think of new ways to get my circuit to power more bulbs, and I finally got a hang of it. I think even during these times, using new materials around the house allowed me to explore and test things out. I am glad that this AP allowed me to do that, and I would like to do the same for the next one as well!