24.DecathlonUserStories

The option of being part of the Hawaii Solar Decathlon Team while in ICS413 is quite the opportunity. "The U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon is an award-winning program that challenges 20 collegiate teams to design, build, and operate solar-powered houses that are cost-effective, energy-efficient, and attractive. The winner of the competition is the team that best blends affordability, consumer appeal, and design excellence with optimal energy production and maximum efficiency.

The first Solar Decathlon was held in 2002; the competition has since occurred biennially in 2005, 2007, and 2009. The next event will take place on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., Sept. 23–Oct. 2, 2011. Open to the public free of charge, visitors can tour the houses, gather ideas to use in their own homes, and learn how energy-saving features can help them save money today."

Purpose

The Solar Decathlon:

• Educates student participants and the public about the many cost-saving opportunities presented by clean-energy products
• Demonstrates to the public the opportunities presented by cost-effective houses that combine energy-efficient construction and appliances with renewable energy systems that are available today
• Provides participating students with unique training that prepares them to enter our nation's clean-energy workforce.

-http://www.solardecathlon.gov/contests.cfm
-http://www.solar.hawaii.edu/

It is because of this project, our class begins the process of designing a system that allows for close monitoring of the applications with their respective costs and profits. This is done to help aid those living in the house have a tight control of their expenditures in order to break even with the power grid and be self sustaining. For this blog entry I will show 10 user stories that can portray options describing the use of the system to be developed.

1.) A household member wishes to inquire to the families energy consumption for that particular month. They will use their smart phone to bring up a web app that allows for the graphical visualization of their current monthly consumption. The member will have the option to choose which day/month/year they would like to view.

2.) A household member wishes to get up out of bed in the middle of the night after awaking to a clatter. The member will say "lights," and the voice activating lighting system will dimly illuminate the room. After exploring the area of the house from which the noise came, the user will return to bed and say "lights" a second time, and the lights turn off.


3.) A household member wishes to set an alarm for the lights to turn on in his house in the early hours of the morning. The user will set this alarm on their phone and go to sleep. The lights then turn on at the requested time in the morning.

4.) A household member wishes to view the O2 generation for a various day. The member will use their smart phone to bring up the data represented by the web application. After clicking the O2 tab, the user will see a line graph that shows the estimated O2 being produced by the aquaponics.

5.) A household member decides that they need to save more energy for that month. The user then goes to their smart phone and enables a checkbox called "spartan savings". This puts the house into spartan mode where only the absolute bare minimum energy is expended to help the house break even with the power grid.

6.) A household member wishes to be notified if their expected energy consumption will cause them to not break even with the power grid. He then whips out his smart phone and goes to the energy consumption tab. He then enables a check box that will "notify if consumption > produced." The user then rests assured that he will know when this may happen.

7.) The house member from story #6 also wishes for everyone else in the house to know if their consumption is far too great, and goes back to the energy tab on the smart phone web app and enables "notify all household members" check box under the "notify if consumption > produced" checkbox.

8.) A household member decides that they want to email their cousin their energy usage vs. consumption graph to brag about how "green" they are being. The user then brings up their smart phone. The user then clicks on the energy tab and clicks the "month" button. The graph provided by google has a link associated with it, and the user copies it into an email and sends it to their cousin.

9.) A household member wishes to play pong on their phone but also have it visualized by the LED array encasing the house. They bring up their smart phone and have it access the web application which consequently has a games tab. The user selects the games tab and selects pong. By default pong is only displayed on the phone, but the user decides to enable it to be viewed on the LEDs and enables the checkbox to do so.

10.) A senior household member wishes to prohibit the TV from being turned on during certain hours of the day. But this member is currently at work. He then brings up his smart phone and accesses the parental housing controls and selects TV. With a quick scroll of 2 drop down menus, the member has now set the TV to be powerless/inactive from hours 7am to 6pm.