GreenSci:minutes

Current

2009.04.16

Attendees

Di, Gabe, Paul, Ben

Progress Update

Jonathan

• Created a set of equations that we could use to plug in values for the cost-benefit analysis he and Di are going to work on.
• He stopped by the Green Zone to say that he would not be able to make it to the meeting today.

Di

• Summarized a chapter from the energy textbook pertaining to the "Economic Paycheck of Solar Energy Systems".

Gabe

Paul

Ben

• Converted all of the meeting notes to this wiki page.
• Logged onto the CS Departments' PostgreSQL database server and took a look at the weather database.
• Chatted with Alex Lemann about charting options (and to get the password for the weather database). He directed me towards 2 very helpful Google technologies:

• Google Chart API - http://code.google.com/apis/chart/basics.html

• Where I came up with this interesting example -- http://chart.apis.google.com/chart?cht=lc&chs=600x400&chtt=Energy%20Generated%20by%20Dennis%20Hall&chl=kWhrs%7CTime&chdl=Solar%7CWind&chco=FF0000,00FF00&chxt=x,y&chd=t:40,60,60,45%7C20,14,25,30,22

• Google ChartWrapper - http://code.google.com/p/google-chartwrapper/

To-Dos

Jonathan

Di

Gabe

Paul

Ben

Archive

2009.04.09

Attendees

Jonathan, Di, Ishmail, Paul, Ben

Progress Update

Di

• Summarized chapter 10 from the "Sustainable Energy Systems Engineering" book.

Paul

• Visisted Miller Farm last week. They are preparing to dig the trench and setting up tower supports. Hopefully, we'll :see the tower up in 3 weeks or so (just in time for the senior gift party).

Ishmail

• Created a hand-drawn schematic of the Green Zone.

To-Dos

Jonathan and Di

• Work with Dennis Hall wind and solar data to create an economic statistics projection

Ishmail

• Convert the hand-drawn schematic into a Google Sketch file and distribute it to the group.

Gabe

• Continue to work on the proposal to the Earlham community for their involvement in developing the Green Zone.

Paul

• Talk to Charlie about where the data for the wind and solar systems is being stored.
• Look more closely into Jon Iverson's websites for museum regulations and figure out how we can best implement them to make it possible for schools to include the Green Zone in their field trips.

Ben

• Be ready to dig into the database that holds the wind and solar data. Then, assist Ishmail and Di in creating an application to graph their output in real-time (possibly as a Django web page). The goal is to have a display running in the display cases in the Green Zone by the end of the semester.

2009.04.02

Attendees

Gabe, Di, Ishmail, Paul, Ben

Progress Update

Paul

• Discussed the main points from the meetings last week.

To-Dos

Jonathan

• Bring back the thermal camera :)
• Obtain the March data feed from Marlene.

Gabe

• Work on a rough draft of a proposal to the Earlham community for ideas and assistance for designing/decorating the Green Zone.

Di

• Work on a set of documents outlining the financial benefits of green technologies.

Ishmail

• Create an electronic blueprint of the Green Zone, with some suggestions for the kiosk and diarama, that can be appended to Gabe's proposal.

Paul

• Create a rough sketch of the diarama that will be placed in the showcase next to LittleFE in the Green Zone.

Ben

• Be looking for the data feed from Marlene and preparing a script to send XML data via HTTP to Caktus Group's server.

2009.03.26

Attendees

Jonathan, Gabe, Di, Ben, Paul, Ishmail

Progress Update

Paul

• The thermal camera is here!
• Met with Charlie and the electricians to spec out a new wind generator for Miller Farm. 400W generator

To-Dos

Jonathan

• Check out the thermal camera and practice taking pictures.
• Work with Marlene to get a first-go-around utility usage spreadsheet.

Gabe

• Check out the thermal camera and practice taking pictures.

Di

• Check out the thermal camera and practice taking pictures.

Ishmail

• Check out the thermal camera and practice taking pictures.

Paul

• Meet with Charlie and Mic to talk about designs for the Green Zone.
• Meeting with Caktus Group to discuss WattNodes.
• Meeting with Charlie on Monday to discuss the new wind generator at Miller Farm.

Ben

• Meet with Charlie and Mic to talk about designs for the Green Zone.
• Meeting with Caktus Group to discuss WattNodes.
• Work on testing a feed from Marlene and possibly sending data to CaktusGroup.

2009.03.12

Attendees

Gabe, Di, Ishmail, Ben, Paul

Progress Update

Jonathan

• Wrote a note on the Green Zone's whiteboard stating that he had a meeting at the same time as ours and could not make it.
• He has spoken with Alan Bigger and Marlene and obtained a template for utility usage data feeds.

Gabe

Di

Ishmail

Paul

• We have the thermal camera ordered for $4,077.00!
• Paul also heard about a donation from an alumni that is intended for environmental equipment on campus. Maybe we can use that to purchase a new blower door??

Ben

• Setup a meeting w/ Charlie Peck, Mic Jackson, Paul, and himself to talk about the Green Zone kiosks and general design.
• Chatted w/ Colin and Alex about details for uploading utility data via EveryWatt APIs.

To-Dos

Jonathan

• Continue working w/ Alan Bigger and Marlene on the utility usage spreadshets.

Gabe

• Research some industrial aplications for the new thermal camera.
• Will be out-of-town for Spring Break.

Di

• Research SmartMeters to see if we might be able to purchase and install them ourselves.

Ishmail

• Assist Ben with programming tasks involving the e-mail scanner and EveryWatt APIs.

Paul

• Play with the new thermal camera :)
• Research our available funds from any and all sources.

Ben

• Play around with the EveryWatt APIs and see how we can get that going.

2009.03.05

Attendees

Di, Ishmail, Ben, Paul

Progress Update

Jonathan

• E-mailed us to say that he would not be able to attend.
• Marlene is building 3 worksheets, one for electricity, gas and water. When she has completed last month's we'll transmit to us.

Gabe

• E-mailed Paul to say he would not be able to attend.

Di

• Found several fans from Ganger Industrial Supply, and brought in comparison specs.

Ishmail

Paul

• Found a great price and is expecting a purchase fairly soon.

Ben

• Sent pictures and notes to the group from the PowerShift '09 event in Washington, D.C.

To-Dos

Jonathan

Gabe

Di

• Keep researching fans, stay in the .75hp power range, and around $500 or less.
• Also... check eBay and/or surplus supply stores to see if we can find a great deal on a used/overstock fan :)

Ishmail

Paul

• Contact Ray Hively about the particulars of re-arranging the furniture a bit in the Green Zone.

Ben

• Check with Alice LaFuze about getting a smaller table for the Green Zone, and to see if she has any existing furniture that could be easily converted into a kiosk structure.

2009.02.26

Attendees

Ben Johnson, Paul Schmidt, Gabe Torres, Di Wang

Progress Update

Jonathan

• Website is pretty much done.
• Jon e-mailed us to say that he could not make the meeting to a scheduling conflict.

Gabe

• Created a very nice comparison chart for the 4 best choices for thermal cameras.

• The Fluke Ti10 ($4,495.00) looks to be the sweet spot for features and price.

Di

• Continued research on blower door components.

• Found a manometer for $190.00 that will serve as our baseline for future comparisons.

Ishmail

• Did not e-mail us with an update or attend the meeting.
• Met with Ben twice to assist/observe e-mail scanner application development.

Paul

Ben

• Finished work on the e-mail scanner application.
• Getting everything ready for the PowerShift '09 event :)

To-Dos

Jonathan

• Has a meeting scheduled w/ Alan Bigger to discuss the creation of an Excel spreadsheet listing all of the utility usages for each house.

Gabe

• Needs to send the thermal camera comparison sheet to the group for documentation purposes.
• Assist Di in further research for blower door components.

Di

• Continue research work.

• Lookup the cost of the actual door & related parts.
• Lookup the cost of an appropriate fan to install in the door.

• Contact electrical/mechanical supply companies; since they are most likely to be informed of the requirements we are looking for (i.e. Kirby Risk).

Ishmail

• Meet with Alan Bigger's contact to ensure that they are willing to send us the utility usage spreadsheet; and inform them of the need for consistency in the data feeds.

Paul

• Take Gabe's recommendation for the Fluke Ti10 to the person(s) that control the budgets and see if we can make the purchase fairly quickly.

Ben

• Work with Jonathan, Alan Bigger, and the Accounting Office to test out the Excel importing process.

2009.02.12

Attendees

Ben, Paul, Gabe, Di, Jonathan, Ishmail

Progress Update

Jonathan

• He was able to upload nearly all of the house pictures and specs to the EEAP website.

Gabe

• Found 3 new thermal cameras in the $4,500 price range, and one in the $5,000 price range (which has a regular camera mode and PIP capabilities).

• Fluke Ti10 Thermal Imaging Camera

Di

• Found a blower door, meter, accessories, and software all for $2,133.
• We can also rent one for $67/mo. (cheapest model), and another (more powerful) for $300/mo.

Ishmail

• Assisted Di in blower door research.

Paul

• No contact with power companies. The storms probably put them back.

Ben

• Work is about 50% done on the automatic importer. We will continue work on this app in anticipation of the non-cooperation from the utility companies.

To-Dos

Jonathan

Gabe

• Work on creating a comparison table for the specs on each of the thermal cameras.

Di

• Continue researching the blower doors. Check costs of the individual parts for a custom-built door (fan, digital multi-meter w/ computer interface, resizable metal frame, foam inserts or rubber baloon).

Ishmail

• Continue researching the blower doors w/ Di.
• Meet w/ Ben to work on the e-mail scanner.

• [MET ON 2-14-09 IN GREEN ZONE FOR 2 HOURS]
• [MET AGAIN ON 2-19-09 IN MY OFFICE FOR 2 HOURS]

Paul

• Think about attending the PowerShift '09 event :)

Ben

• Continue working on the e-mail importer application.

• [MET W/ ISH ON 2-14-09 IN GREEN ZONE FOR 2 HOURS]

• Send an e-mail out about prepping the Green Zone this Saturday.
• Contact Hannah about more details on the PowerShift '09 event and see if we can some of the Green Sciences folks on-board (Jonathan is definitely interested).

2009.02.05

Attendees

Ben Johnson, Paul Schmidt, Gabe Torres, Di Wang, Jonathan Jenner

To-Dos

Jonathan

• Keep working on the EEAP website (includes filling in house data, assigning uploaded images to the houses, and adding FAQ information as necessary).
• Contact Alan Bigger about obtaining regular Excel files with information about the houses' Gas bills.

Gabe

• Continue working on the thermal camera. Try to find cameras outside of our budget range; so we can have a better picture of features vs. affordability.

Di

• Continue investigating blower doors to see if it would be more cost-effective to assemble inexpensive parts and assemble our own vs. purchasing a complete package for a higher price.

Ishmail

• Meeting with Ben on, 2/11/09, to assist in the prototype for the e-mail scanner/XLS importer application.

• [MISSED THE MEETING]

Paul

• Continue to make contacts with Vectron and RP&L to obtain regular CSV downloads of all our houses' energy usages

Ben

• Contact WebDB folks about setting our group up for online timesheets.
• Send a HTML page to Kay Wanous with basic overview information about Green Sciences and include links to our various projects (consisting only of EEAP currently).
• Make sure everybody is on the EEAP mailing list and send out a test message.
• Work on a proof-of-concept application that will be able to scan an e-mail address at regular intervals, look for EEAP-related Excel spreadsheets, parse the information, and import it into a database. I'm invisioning a Microsoft Access database reading Microsoft Outlook e-mails (every 60 seconds), then importing the cells directly into linked tables (pointing to MySQL database on "stewie", or local tables for testing purposes).

2008.12.11

Attendees

Charlie Peck, Paul Schmidt, Alex Leman, Colin Copeland (phone)

IRC Channel: #infocom

Website

http://earlham.caktusgroup.com

Completely written in Python/Django/PostgreSQL

Logic is all in the database as SQL

Admin account: charliep@earlham.edu --> abc123

Caktus Group would like to own/sell the code in the future

To-Dos

EEAP Nodes (3 current nodes)

• Charlie purchased a powerful computer to handle this project quite easily
• HIP will maintain the nodes
• Alan Bigger said that he would support more purchases

Charlie will forward with RPnL contact person onto Paul for him to follow-up

• The billing information for all of the houses we own
• Obtaining instantaneous data of the college's power consumption
• Harry Phillips (Marketing Director) should be responsive

Conversion of TTL pulses from EEAP Nodes into actual kilowatt hours (kWh)

• http://www.cs.earlham.edu/~copelco/wiki/index.php/Senior_Seminar
• Watt Nodes convert pulses from the magnets attached to electrical lines

• Sends the pulses to a Single-Board Computer (SBC)

• Uses an application called InfoBomb to convert signals to data
• CALIBRATION NEEDED: Reading electrical ticks and amperage

• Green Sciences should do the calibrations

• Sends data via ethernet connection to "stewie.cs.earlham.edu"
• Unpacks information and stores it in a local database

Business logic issues (PostgreSQL SQL code)

• Caktus Group would like to do most of this work, but they may ask for assistance

Data issues (recurring)

• Pay work studies pour through the data and help us validate its integrity
• Earlham will modify the actual data for the web site
• Alex and Colin need to see a template of the data from utility companies

• kWh usage
• Cost per kWh
• Transmission costs
• Houses are coded by their name (with lattitude & longitude coordinates)

Host the website on "stewie.cs.earlham.edu"

• Charlie will administer the server itself until HIP can take it over
• Server is practically brand new (quad core, 4GB RAM, etc.)

2008.11.03

Contacts

Faculty

Charlie Peck

Mic Jackson

Paul Schmidt

Ben Johnson

Students

Jonathan Jenner

Sanele Mahlalela

Malick Keita

Alex Lemann

Basic Structure of System

Manual Entries

• "Occupants" (consumer_id, date_start, date_stop, number, etc.)
• "Consumers" (id, name, type, etc.)
• "Commodities" (id, name, unit, vendor, etc.)

Automated (eventually)

• "Readings" (date, consumer_id, commodity_id, cost, reading)
• Webpage for each Earlham house that lists the 3-year average usage and compares that to the current meter reading from our in-house appliances and to the "official" readings from each utility company.

To-Dos

Jonathan

• Compile a list of all of the houses Earlham currently maintains with their addresses.

Paul & Mic

• Contact Richmond Power & Light (Harry Phillips), Indiana Water (Rich Nicholson), and Vectron Gas Co. to see if they can generate CSV files of the usage for each of our houses.
• Then, see if we can entice them to automate a process for sending this information to us on a tri-monthly basis (i.e. e-mails or FTP folder on a server that they can drop files onto).

Ben

• Contact Alex to see if he can setup a new account for Ben and Paul to access the "Admin" tools on http://eeap.cs.earlham.edu.

• [E-MAILED ON: 11-4-08 & 11-13-08]

• Setup a meeting between Ben, Charlie, and Alex to discuss website's status and what needs to be done. Preferably a Thursday evening or weekend.

• [E-MAILED ON: 11-4-08 & 11-13-08]

• Check the members assigned to the eeap@lists.earlham.edu mailing list nd clean it up. Then, notify all members to start using that for all communications.

• Alex already has a mailing list @ eeap@lists.cs.earlham.edu