Lab report
It is important to design your home to maximise coolness and at the same
time minimise energy consumption because you can save money by
automatically cooling down your house without the use of air-conditioning
and fans that will cost you money. By designing your house to
automatically cool it down in summer and keep it warm in winter.
These are a few ways you could cool down your house and minimise
energy consumption.
 You could use eves to drop the amount of heat that penetrates the
windows dramatically.
 The orientation of the house plays a big role in the coolness of the
house. You should face the main windows and walls north as this
reflects the suns heat in summer and reflects the cold winter breeze
in winter because the sun takes a different path in summer and
winter.
 Insulation slows down the movement of heat by making less room for
it to move quickly.
 You could use solar panels for water heating and for all of your daily
appliances.
 Painting the house a bright colour will decrease the amount of heat
the walls of your home absorb.
Most energy efficient homes in Mackay are located in the plantation palms
area and cutters field in Oorealea.
One strength of my house design is that there is very little room for my Ice
cubes to fall over and ruin my
experiment. Some weaknesses are that
there was wind so it could cool down
everything down.
Aim
The aim of this experiment was to see how long you could keep your ice
cubes solid and what was the best way to do this. Like some people tested
on shade colour, insulation and many more different cooling techniques.
Hypothesis
The Hypothesis of my experiment was that the first house with the alfoil
insulation would trap the heat and melt the ice rather quickly, the wool on
the second house would repel half of the heat and the other half would be
absorbed so the ice wouldn’t melt as fast a the first house. For the last
house for its insulation it had bubble wrap and the Hypothesis was that the
bubble wrap would create a cushioned layer between the suns heat and
the ice, therefore keeping it cool. The main Hypothesis was that the bubble
wrap would keep the ice cubes solid the longest and the secondary
Hypothesis is that the other two insulations will trap most of the heat and
melt the ice cubes faster.
Materials
The materials that I used are as follows:
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Plastic containers
Pens
Paper
Aluminium foil
Bubble wrap
Wool
Ice cubes
Measuring cups
Specimen jars
Method
What I did to prepare for this experiment was to find the materials that I
needed around the home and shape the materials so that they would be
able to effectively insulation a couple of ice cubes in a plastic container
in the shape of rounded walls and a flat roof.
The material that
is the wall
insulation, either
alfoil, wool or
bubble wrap
The exterior of
the plastic
container
The material that
is the wall
insulation, either
alfoil, wool or
bubble wrap
Results
Bubble Wrap
Mins
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
18
20
Amount of melted ice (ml)
3ml
5ml
6ml
7ml
7ml
8ml
8ml
8ml
8ml
9ml
Alfoil
Mins
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
18
20
Amount of melted ice (ml)
3ml
4ml
5ml
6ml
6ml
7ml
7ml
7.5ml
8ml
8ml
Wool
Mins
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
18
20
Amount of melted ice (ml)
3ml
4ml
5ml
6ml
7ml
7ml
8ml
8ml
8.5ml
9ml
Discussion
My homes were very effective at keeping the ice solid compared to other
homes that half way through the experiment their ice had already
completely melted. The temperature of the inside of my houses I think
would have been around the 27 degrees and the ground temperature was
around 30 degrees so that would have interfered with the experiment
because of the effect it would have had on the base of the home. My
results revealed that they were all very good insulators but the Alfoil kept
the ice solid the longest and they all melted at roughly the same rate.
The most likely reason for my results would be that the heating and how
much was absorbed and how much was reflected. The alfoil because of its
bright colour would reflect a lot of the heat, the wool trapped the bulk of the
heat and reflected the rest or else it would have melted the ice much faster
and the bubble wrap probably didn’t have much defence against the suns
rays because of its very thin layer of plastic.
Conclusion
Comparing my results and the Hypothesis shows that they are very
different , because I thought that the alfoil would absorb not reflect, I also
thought that the bubble wrap would bounce the heat away not just let it
come through but I think I got it right with the wool.
I think the alfoil would be a good insulator given the results of the
experiment.
I think I would use the alfoil as the insulation.
Evaluation
The strengths of my experiment were that I got the insulation right and I got
the houses in a nice sunny spot for the experiment. I also had a lot of
weaknesses like that temperature of the ground, the wind, me having to
move my house and disrupting the experiment due to people almost
knocking them over.
I didn’t really have any problem during the testing although I did have to
move my houses a few times to stop them getting knock over.
I should do the experiment on a day with no wind, a fairly average
temperature for that time of the year and take into account the temperature
of the house surroundings.
I could make the walls thicker, and design the houses rooves so that the
hot air rises up and out of the house.