Hwa Chong Institution Green Council 2010-2011 Best Green Idea Entry Form

Part I Rules and Regulations

Please read through the following rules and regulations fully before filling in the form and embarking on this competition. 1. This competition is opened to all students from both C1 and C2. 2. Submitted entries must be students own work or idea. Students may choose to submit and reuse ideas from Project Work, Service Learning, etc. However, any form of plagiarism will result in automatic disqualification, as well as possible disciplinary actions. 3. Students may choose to participate individually or choose to participate in teams of up to 5. 4. Students may choose to submit more than 1 entry. However, they are to do so with a separate set of entry forms. 5. Please use our given submission template as a guideline for your ideas. However, students need not follow the template strictly and may choose to make additions to it as they wish. 6. The final submission date for this competition is 27 April 2011

(Wednesday), 2359.
7. All entries are to be submitted to hwachonggreencouncil@gmail.com titled in the following format [Best Green Idea (Group Name), (Idea Name)]

Scope of Competition
1. Students are to come up with ideas on how to improve any aspect of the current environment in school. 2. Environment in school could refer to water, electricity, paper, food, greenery, air freshening, etc. This list is non exhaustive and students who are unsure should drop us an email to double check.

Judging
1. There will be two rounds of judging. 2. The first round of judging will be done by members of the Green Council as well as teachers, based on our attached rubrics. 3. There will be a shortlist of 5 finalists. 4. These 5 finalists will undergo a final round of judging by staff and student voting on the EMB. 5. The entry with the highest amount of votes received from students and staff of Hwa Chong institution will be the winner for this competition.

Prizes 1st Prize: $100 Kinokuniya voucher 2nd Prize: $75 Kinokuniya voucher 3rd Prize: $50 Kinokuniya voucher 4th and 5th Prize: $25 Kinokuniya voucher
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Hwa Chong Institution Green Council 2010-2011 Best Green Idea Entry Form

Rubrics for Best Green Idea

Category Potential of Idea (30%) Marks Rubrics The idea should show potential to benefit the school (students, teachers, staff, etc) in any aspect of the environment. The proposal should be new and have never been tested before in our school. It should bring a fresh and interesting approach towards improving the environment in school. The implementation process should not take too long, and groups should find the least tedious way to carry it out (i.e. least need for manpower, no major change to school infrastructure, self sustainable). It should be feasible as well. The proposal has a feasible budget that does not take up too much money from the school. There should be substantial justification on the proposed budget according to scale of project. Depending on the scale of the project, it could range from S$100 S$1000.

/30

Originality and Creativity (20%) /20

Implementation Process (30%) /30

Budget of proposal (20%) /20

TOTAL (100%)

/100

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Hwa Chong Institution Green Council 2010-2011 Best Green Idea Entry Form

Part II Team/Individual Information Please fill in the details of your project below. Please provide us with the email address and contact number of at least one of the members, preferably the leader. Title of Project: Air-Conditioner Direct Control System
Team Name : Green Goblins

Group Leader : Shen Le E-MAIL Address : Alise_shenle@hotmail.com

CT: 10S67

Contact No : 98349595 CT: 10S69

Group Member 1 : Kimberly Lee Zi Xin

Group Member 2::

CT:

Group Member 3 :

CT:

Group Member 4 :

CT:

Please state in NOT more than 200 words, what the proposed project is about: Did you know that leaving lights on, fans on, opting for air conditioning all add up to lost energy? Being energy efficient is not always about adding solar panels and solar lights to ones home, it is more about being conscious of what one uses and when one uses it. Typically, air conditioning uses more electricity than anything else and in warmer regions like Singapore, AC can be 60-70% of the electric bill. Many students will not switch off the lights or air con after leaving a room, assuming that other classes will be using them later. However, it is actually more inefficient and energy consuming to leave it on. Even when the temperature is very low, students just wear jackets instead of addressing the problem at the root. Our group has decided to use available and affordable modern technology to alleviate the energy consumption problem. We acknowledge that these might not eradicate the problem of energy wastage, but it will at least mitigate this conundrum.

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Hwa Chong Institution Green Council 2010-2011 Best Green Idea Entry Form

Part III Green Idea Proposal Template

1. Observed Situation:
Air-conditioning, especially in Singapores sometimes unbearably hot climate, often constitutes a large portion of the any buildings utilities bill. It is crucial that we maximise the efficiency of our schools air-conditioning facilities, in order to reduce electricity wastage and conserve our environments scarce energy resources. Usually, after lessons, students will just leave the classroom without turning off the lights or air con because they assume other classes will use the same classroom anyway. As a result, the air-conditioners are left powered to cool an empty room, needlessly wasting electricity. Heat flows from a region of higher temperature to a region of lower temperature. With the air-conditioner off, the temperature of classroom will rise until room temperature, so when another class switch airconditioner on again, the air-conditioner only needs to remove this much heat. However, if the air-conditioner is never off, there is no limit to the amount of heat it absorbs from the outside. So, the air-conditioner will end up using more energy. Exacerbating this problem is the fact that most windowless rooms like LTs, Audis, Reading Room, Consultation areas, Library have air-conditioner on almost constantly. The white paint on the walls of most of the rooms help to reduce heat gain from the outside environment, further reducing the need to leave the air-conditioner on at all times.

2. Proposed Solution: 2.1 Outline of solution

To address the problem of leaving the air con, lights or other electrical devices on, a motion sensor should be installed. They work by measuring the infrared radiation given off when people are present in a room. So when all students exit a room, after 1 minute, no radiation is measured. The motion sensor would then cause the airconditioner to switch off automatically. For places constantly using air-conditioner, we can install a thermistor. Whenever a room reaches the temperature decided by the main system, the air-conditioner would be switched off. Being painted white, the temperature is likely to be maintained for a while, before too much heat accumulates and the increasing temperature decreases the resistance of the thermistor, causing voltage to flow again and turning the airconditioner back on.

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Hwa Chong Institution Green Council 2010-2011 Best Green Idea Entry Form

2.2 Rationale for solution (explanation of why it works/is an improvement)

By using a thermistor, the room can be kept at around the same temperature even without the air-conditioner on, saving energy. This saves electricity and improves the study environment of the students, who may otherwise find the rooms too cold. In addition, the air-conditioners will not run when the room is vacant, thus conserving energy.

2.3 Probable costs

Thermistors cost less than $100 generally so it should not be too expensive. Motion sensors cost from $10-$100 so it is affordable too.

2.4 Possible obstacles

It might be difficult to implement this in every classroom since there are many different types of motion sensors for different areas of rooms and types of lights and time is needed to fit the motion sensor to each room. As such technology has not been implemented before on such a large scale, this initiative may not be successful given the lack of precedents from which we can benefit. However, with sufficient trial runs, this project can be continually improved upon and we will soon be able to reap significant savings in electricity. The assembly, maintenance and running costs may deter support for this project, but in the long run, its benefits of overall electricity conservation will outweigh these costs.

3. Appendices (optional)
http://michaelbluejay.com/electricity/cooling.html

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