NASA - Stephanie Chan | Customer Strategy & Applied Design, Deloitte Digital

MY ROLE

Visual Design
Rapid Prototyping
Pitching

SUMMARY

I led the design for our team's prototype aiming to help households monitor home appliance usage and optimize power from the sun.

AWARDS

Co-winner of NASA Space Apps Challenge 2017 · Perth, Australia
Global Nominee of NASA Space Apps Challenge 2017 · Worldwide
app prototype ⊛ Helio Sense

Enable households to plan & optimize
daily energy usage

Role / Designer working with two developers and a science researcher

Tools / Sketch, Slack

Timeline / 48 hrs

Context

OPTIMIZING POWER FROM THE SUN

Earth-orbiting spacecrafts, such as the International Space Station (ISS), require a source of power to be able to perform various functions in space. For example, ISS relies on electrical power to allow the crew to live comfortably, operate the station, and perform scientific experiments.

In space, the sun is a readily available source of energy. NASA has, and continues to develop technologies to convert sunlight into power for ISS and satellite missions, including the Orbiting Carbon Observatory 2 (OCO-2). These technologies include photovoltaic systems (such as solar panels) and solar batteries, which are charged during the sunlit part of the spacecraft’s orbit, storing energy to be used when the spacecraft is not in direct sunlight.

The concept of solar energy is not instinctively tangible. While we may appreciate the capacity of solar panels and solar batteries, many of us don’t understand how much energy a solar panel actually produces.
"Create a medium to help people understand energy output from a solar panel, and a tool to plan energy consumption based on expected energy output from solar technologies."

Hackathon Brief

Pitching our prototype @ Unearthed, Perth, AU

Goals

Ensure universal access to affordable, reliable and modern energy services.
Increase substantially the share of renewable energy in the global energy mix.
Compel households to move towards a sustainable energy system

Our fab team: (L to R) Peter Arato, me, Matteo Vinci, and Sandra Arato

The Challenge

Our challenge was to create a means to help people understand how much energy comes from a solar panel. Taking our solution a step further, we were aiming to create a tool allowing the HI-SEAS crew, other explorers, or households reliant on solar panels, to plan their daily energy consumption for all their human necessities and other planned activities based on expected energy output from solar panels.

Our Design Direction

Approaching this challenge from a home point of view, we tried to understand the energy use for a family on a typical day (e.g. peak times of consumption) and ways in which we can encourage consumers to use less energy while maximizing their solar power available, ultimately minimizing power requirements from the utility provider.
The Solution
HELIO SENSE

Helio Sense aims to use solar irradiance data from the NASA HI-SEAS Habitat project to model a day of solar power and help households monitor home appliance usage based on their daily energy consumption habits.

We have also incorporated a preview of our gamification element which we hope will contribute to a shift in consumer behaviour towards more efficient use of energy, thereby saving money and reducing peak loads on the power grid.

Discovering that similar concepts are working effectively in certain cities (e.g. Melbourne), we hope to put the pieces together to create a Smart Energy Home which people can interact with - one which families are being rewarded for good energy-saving habits. We also hope to incorporate elements of education for families on factors influencing power production and consumption.

GO TO PROTOTYPE

Please view on desktop browser

Behind the App

CODES & DATA STRUCTURING

React for front-end, Python for data structuring
Code is available at: https://github.com/sandra-arato/NASA-SpaceAppsChallenge

A short video we created introducing our prototype

Going Beyond

CURRENT FEATURES · SIMULATED

Daily energy input/output in sync with your location time. This would be obtained from internet connection details or configuring the system initially upon first use.

Appliance Settings panel (via cog icon) to tell the system the power ratings of your home appliances in order to calculate appropriate energy use and costing information.

A 'Social' information panel (via earth icon) to compare your usage amongst local homes and around the world. Our app simply shows a representation of how this feature may look.

An 'Energy Forecast' shown on the right-hand side of the simulation screen. This is not real data but would be implemented based on various data sources depending on your location. For example, in Perth, there is a collaboration between Murdoch University and Sustainable Energy Now (SEN) which uses various datasets predicting daily solar power output for the days ahead.

FUTURE FEATURES · NEXT STEPS

Notifications from energy provider of upcoming system maintenance which may lead to temporary blackouts due to network upgrades or load shifting during expected peak times. Network faults could also be advised (based on internet connectivity, perhaps with a mobile data backup).

System telemetry data reporting back to the energy provider on usage patterns and individual home appliance data, which could be used by manufacturers to improve design efficiency and software updates for IoT (Internet of Things) devices.
Award ceremony and post-event pics
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✌️ Designed + created by Stephanie

Visual Design

Rapid Prototyping

Pitching

SUMMARY

I led the design for our team's prototype aiming to help households monitor home appliance usage and optimize power from the sun.

AWARDS

Co-winner of NASA Space Apps Challenge 2017 · Perth, Australia

Global Nominee of NASA Space Apps Challenge 2017 · Worldwide

app prototype ⊛ Helio Sense

Enable households to plan & optimize

daily energy usage

Role / Designer working with two developers and a science researcher

Tools / Sketch, Slack

Timeline / 48 hrs

Context

OPTIMIZING POWER FROM THE SUN

Earth-orbiting spacecrafts, such as the International Space Station (ISS), require a source of power to be able to perform various functions in space. For example, ISS relies on electrical power to allow the crew to live comfortably, operate the station, and perform scientific experiments.

The concept of solar energy is not instinctively tangible. While we may appreciate the capacity of solar panels and solar batteries, many of us don’t understand how much energy a solar panel actually produces.

"Create a medium to help people understand energy output from a solar panel, and a tool to plan energy consumption based on expected energy output from solar technologies."

Ensure universal access to affordable, reliable and modern energy services.

Increase substantially the share of renewable energy in the global energy mix.

Compel households to move towards a sustainable energy system

The Challenge

HELIO SENSE

Helio Sense aims to use solar irradiance data from the NASA HI-SEAS Habitat project to model a day of solar power and help households monitor home appliance usage based on their daily energy consumption habits.

We have also incorporated a preview of our gamification element which we hope will contribute to a shift in consumer behaviour towards more efficient use of energy, thereby saving money and reducing peak loads on the power grid.

Behind the App

CODES & DATA STRUCTURING

React for front-end, Python for data structuring

Code is available at: https://github.com/sandra-arato/NASA-SpaceAppsChallenge

CURRENT FEATURES · SIMULATED

Daily energy input/output in sync with your location time. This would be obtained from internet connection details or configuring the system initially upon first use.

Appliance Settings panel (via cog icon) to tell the system the power ratings of your home appliances in order to calculate appropriate energy use and costing information.

A 'Social' information panel (via earth icon) to compare your usage amongst local homes and around the world. Our app simply shows a representation of how this feature may look.

FUTURE FEATURES · NEXT STEPS

Notifications from energy provider of upcoming system maintenance which may lead to temporary blackouts due to network upgrades or load shifting during expected peak times. Network faults could also be advised (based on internet connectivity, perhaps with a mobile data backup).

System telemetry data reporting back to the energy provider on usage patterns and individual home appliance data, which could be used by manufacturers to improve design efficiency and software updates for IoT (Internet of Things) devices.

⊛

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rise-x

»

Panophobia