Week One Blog
This week was the initiation of everything I have to do to complete my project further down the line. I started with outlining the final deliverables and the steps I would need to accomplish these deliverables through making a final presentation skeleton. Me and my mentor came to the conclusion that the final deliverable for my project should be a comprehensive review of the school’s energy usage and inefficiencies, and assessing ideal methods to increase the school’s energy efficiency, and in the process lower the schools emissions. Earlier in the year I connected with Mr. Traore, the Facilities and Capital Projects Manager at BASISed Texas. So we set up a meeting to discuss which types of data would be useful for the project, as well as which data is available to even be used. I asked subsequent related questions and now I’m waiting for him to come back with the data I need such as kilowatt hours and any Energy Utilization Diagrams (EUD) numbers.
Simultaneously, I surveyed the local area in search of traffic data collectors as the next part of my project. Unfortunately I couldn’t find any so I settled for contacting my district (8) in order to find out who is in charge of the oversight and distribution of these traffic data collectors. My objective in acquiring one of these is to put in front of the entrance to the school at pickup and drop off to accurately analyze how many cars are entering and exiting the school and how much time it takes. This is so I can calculate the amount of time cars spend idling and assess the environmental impact, as well as any inefficiencies within the system. So, the district told me that these traffic data collectors are in the hands of the Department of Public Works, so I contacted them about acquiring them and am still waiting on a response.
In between all of this, I also spent numerous hours researching what ideal emissions reports look like, as well as what data and methodology goes along with it. I found the official Harvard emissions report to be the most illuminating, which I’m now using as a basis for what data is ideal and how I’m going to implement my findings.
Actual deliverables wise, this week was lacking. However, this is a good start to the project setting everything I will need for the next ten weeks in motion, obviously barring any unforeseen problems. I’m happy with both the takeaways of this week and the future it holds for the rest of my project.
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