Student Energy Summit 2017 (Week 12b)

Student Energy Summit 2017 - Sponsored by Blue Planet Foundation

Mililani High School, O'ahu

Friday, November 10th - Saturday, November 11th

This year's energy summit focused on teaching students how to become agents of change through community advocacy. Students were taught about energy policies and how to get involved in the legislative process in Hawai'i to encourage responsible energy reform through policy and laws. 

Students worked to create a community energy campaign that included the following steps:

1. identify the problem
2. define the target audience
3. what components from each breakout session will you use? identify them?
4. list your action items?
1. for your group
2. for your campaign community
5. preferred outcome of the campaign
6. how will you measure your outcome?
7. show a timeline

Our team designed a "smart home" system that would help people turn off appliances or gadgets that were not in use, or lights around the home, based on learned behaviors of the homeowner. They recognized that one of the easiest ways that people can reduce their energy consumption is to simply turn off lights and unplug devices when not in use. So, why is so hard for people to remember to perform such simple actions? How hard is it to remember to flip a switch to turn the lights off when we leave? Well, this seems like an easy thing to do, but we waste so much energy and money by simply being forgetful or lazy. What if there was someway that your "house" could help you with this behavior and correct some of your bad habits? That's exactly what our team wanted to create. The called their A.I. device "Relectro" (don't really know the story behind their product) and came up with two ways to market their product. 1) Market the product through advertising on the back of LED bulbs, 2) work with PV contractors to tell homeowners about the product. Of course, there would be quite a bit of "pitching" to engineering and design firms to create the product and work out the software, physical components, and circuitry for a home or commercial space. All in all, the idea is to create a new product to help consumers make smarter energy choices every day to help Hawai'i meet their clean energy goals by 2045.