Final Portfolio

VOLTAGE METERS -

The First thing that we worked on in ISR was learning how to use the voltage meters where we would connect two ends of the meter to a battery in order to test if the battery had sufficient energy or not. I will use this later in VR where I tested the voltage of the receiver in the driving steering wheel.

SCAVENGER HUNT

The next thing that we worked on was the scavenger hunt, where we would answer questions by learning the ins and outs of the elab such as manipulating fans In the building, checking power consumption and production throughout campus, and reading data on the rain catching system.

Here is the answers I found to the scavenger hunt to that others can replicate this.

Elab energy hunt-answers on your weblog!

Part one: Sensors and controls

• go to 10.14.17.1 and see if you can open something

• go to 10.14.18.1 and do the same thing

• try again with 10.14.19.1, what do you find? - Fan switches

• go to 10.14.41.1 and look at the energy use in the elab, then turn on the hot tea water maker, which circuit is it on? -

• go to 10.14.62.x and check out the weather right now. What is a W/m2? - watts per square meter

• check out 10.14.8.10 to see the earthquake activity here

Part two: egauges

• Go to 10.14.8.1

• check out the solar production in the elab, and all of the energy use

• see if you can find the time you just turned on the hot water tea maker

• see if you can find the time you turned on the fans (you may have to leave them on for a minute or two)

• when did the wind turbine mysteriously come on recently?

• is it working now? no

• go to 10.14.8.2

• how much solar power is generated on campus? Around 200 kW

• how much is generated at the elab? 60 kW

• how much is generated at the PPA array behind the elab? 80 kW

• how much solar power is generated at each building? Between 20 and 40 kW at all normal buildings

• how much is used at each location? Between 10 and 20 kW

• when is it used? From 6am to 10 pm

• what does this tell you? People are constantly in the e lab during the school day

• what dorm uses the most energy? PerryFiske

• when do the dorm lights “go off”? 12 am to 6am

• when is the use the least? 12 am to 6 am

• how could you tell a refrigerator from any other load? Refrigerators spike

• what does a hot water heater look like? Huge cylinder

• what does a stove look like? Has heaters on top of a huge box (large hot plate)

• how could you detect an air conditioner that was left on all night? Look

• which of the faculty cottages is using the most energy? At the intervals at nighttime and spikes

• when does cottage 3 hot water heater timer go on? 6am or 6pm

• when did they run out of hot water? After about an hour

• when did cottage 3 do some cooking? Lunch times

• compare these with cottage 7

• what was the weather last Friday using the solar data? Rain

• when did it rain that day? Early in the morning

Part three: skyspark

• go to skyspark.hpa.edu

• login as guest/guest

• check out buildings and users on the upper campus

Part four: elab2.hpa.edu

• go to elab2.hpa.edu (I wasn't able to log into the website)

• login as isr/p——77

• what was the lowest temp today and when?

• what was the max power from the PPA panels today?

• what was the max on the longest day of the year?

• the shortest?

• what is the usual campus energy use at night?

• what time was someone working in the middle classrooms today?

• what time was someone working in the monlab today?

• when did the tennis center use the lights?

• what was the weather that day?

• when did someone use the microwave oven today for 2 minutes?

• when do the security lights come on at the elab every night?

Part five: EMC server 5

• go to 10.14.4.5

• login as isr/p——77

• click on “monitor”

• hit “go”

• use the checkboxes to select some items for comparison and graph (above)

• play with the date and time selection to see more

Part six: Mango

• go to 10.14.4.163

• login as admin/admin

• look for “data sources”

• look at data points, and check some of the egauge values

Summary:

• Which of the tools you used was the most interesting? - I really liked the Solar power because I was able to see the entire campus’ power generation and usage

• Which was the most accurate? - The energy usage/generation website

• Which was the easiest to use? - The fan toggle
  Which would you use for an energy project? - The EMC server or the egauges

TERMINAL ON THE LAPTOPS -

The next thing we worked on was the terminal on laptops where I would learn to hack (ping spam, reset files, check Elab cameras, utilizing stealth mode to Protect myself, and understanding how to check my Ip and use console commands). This taught me how to be more secure while also giving me a new lens on how computers work in general.

REPAIR TEAM - This is the project that I worked on the most during my time in ISR. What I would do is dismantle computers ranging from 2007 mac desktops, 2009 mac desktops, chromebooks, 2015 mac laptops, and much more. Using the very handy toolkit that Dr. Bill gave us, we were able to dismantle the computers, clean them using the air pump by blasting the dust out, and replacing the harddrive in the machine so that the older models can run as fast and maybe even faster than the computers that are in the market today. Once we eventually fixed around 10 to 15 computers, we started to give them away to people in need of a better computer, these people would sometimes be other students or even students in different schools! The Repair team has been the most beneficial to me in ISR because it has taught me how to fix, clean, and improve computers I previously thought I didn;t understand.

UNREAL ENGINE

This was a small side project but I decided to log into the Unreal Engine to see if an old project I worked on was still available to which it unfortunately didn’t but the Unreal Engine is very powerful and I recommend trying it out

HYDRA PC -

Using what I have learned on the repair team, me and one of my classmates Sean decided to take on repairing the Hydra PC which was a super strong PC that needed some cleaning and setting up. Eventually, we were able to set it up along with a monitor that we were loaned and it worked great! This strong PC would be incorporated into our next project which was the Oculus VR

OCULUS VR

The oculus VR after a long time of troubleshooting accounts (which are now publicly available on the hydra pc) was able to be set up so that everyone on campus can now enjoy the concept of virtual reality! To try something different, we tried to test the capabilities of the VR and if it could play games not only unintended for VR, but for PC in general! We were able to rig together mobile games in VR by activating desktop mode in VR and downloading bluestacks (a program allowing mobile play on pc) onto the PC and it worked!

SPRITE EDITING IN STEAM GAMES -

This is a small project I decided to work on where I would edit the sprites and code in the game “Crypt of the Necrodancer” so I could create a custom character in the game. This was done by editing pixel art and Visual studio

OLD PC BREAKDOWN -

This side project had one simple goal, destroy an old PC and salvage anything that could be useful. Even Though we didn’t find anything useful, it was interesting on how outdated and different the technology inside the PC was, especially looking at the old rotting battery inside. It was a interesting experience that peaked my interest in repairing

RACE CAR IN VR-

Though we ran out of time to finish this project, I was able to utilize the Meter to determine if the steering wasn’t getting power to which it was. We were planning on connecting the racing simulator to VR but the wheel wasn’t connecting which caused technical difficulties. In the end I was able to put my repairing skills to good use and hopefully fixed the wheel that wasn’t connecting.