02 - Green Energy Forecast

Photo by Appolinary Kalashnikova on Unsplash

Description

This activity uses historical data to illustrate electricity generated by fossil fuels. This type of project can help us all make better decisions when we have options regarding our consumption of electricity.

One example of how to use this project is coordinating our use of the washer and dryer to do our laundry with times during the day when the available electricity is mostly produced by non-fossil fuels.

Data used for this activity DATA

Materials

Quantity	Material
1	micro:bit
1	battery pack
1	set of 3 alligator clips to M connector
1	servo motor
1	pre-cut cardstock sheet

Assembly Instructions

Functionality

micro:bit A Button

• Cycle through the different time periods programmed.

• Each time period is represented by a lit LED on the micro:bit.

• The set time periods are: 7am-9am, 11am-1pm, 3pm-7pm, 9pm-1am and 3am-5am.

micro:bit B Button

• Cycle through the month of the year.

• Each month is displayed on the micro:bit (abbreviated to 3 letters).

Servo Motor

• It will move each time either the A or B buttons are pressed on the micro:bit to the specified percentage of non-fossil fuel energy produced at the requested month and time period.

• Once the project is assembled, the servo motor will point to the scale drawn on the cardstock sheet.

MakeCode project LINK

Find more projects at our partner's website SteamLabs

This is a clear example of how data visualization can help us make better decisions. If all of us had a device like this, we could drastically lower our consumption of fossil fuels. In the next activity we are taking a look at different scenarios regarding temperature change, see you there.