DEFINE

We had a few different ideas but then we decided together on our challenge.  Our challenge was to find ways to design a house that was as energy efficient as possible.  As a group, we talked about if we should have a budget for the price of the items we would need in our house but then we decided that we would not have a budget because it would give us more freedom.

DISCOVER

The questions we used were:

What energy efficient houses are built right now?

What uncommon things can we put in our house to make it more energy efficient?

There are quite a few energy efficient houses built right now but not very many built to save as much energy as we wanted to.  There is a house in Washington that a man added many power savers to make his house energy efficient so we used some of his ideas in our house.

 

DREAM

We spent a long time looking a different power saving or generating objects to make our house energy efficient. We decided on things such as solar windows, solar roofing, and a solar refrigerator.  You can see the rest of what we chose in our PowerPoint below.  We ran into a problem where we would dream of something like a solar-powered dishwasher or washing machine but then found they did not exist so we could not use them in our house.  We then decided on naming our house the “SMART SMART HOUSE” because it is energy smart.

 

DELIVER

We used a PowerPoint to show what we would put in our house.

Our SMART SMART HOUSE will save energy by not needing electricity to power a fridge or turn a light on or heat/cool the house.  Our SMART SMART HOUSE will help people by showing people what can be done to make your house energy efficient.  Drawbacks are the price, the price of the SMART SMART HOUSE would be really, really expensive so we understand this would not be realistic for people to implement into their lives.  Our SMART SMART HOUSE would not be easy for people to implement into their lives but some of the things we have in our house would be easy such as putting in solar lights.

DEBRIEF

I think we could have done better on a few things such as having a more clear idea and plan of what we wanted to do.  We just started researching different things to put in our house and then after made a PowerPoint with all the different things.  I learned a lot about what you can put in a house to make it energy efficient, before this project, I had no idea there was anything like a solar refrigerator.  I think we did well on was finding some unique ways to make a house energy efficient other than just normal solar panels.