Class of 2008
Major: ECE
Project Center: London, England
Interactive Qualifying Project: Investigating the use of overnight lighting in commercial shops and offices as part of a global effort to reduce carbon emissions and reverse global warming.
Tom Niemczycki
December 27, 2006
My name is Tom Niemczycki, and I will be completing my Interactive Qualifying Project (IQP) in London this C-term, which lasts from January until March. I am a junior at WPI majoring in Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE). I am involved in a number of activities at school including Lambda Chi Alpha Fraternity, the Lens and Lights Club, the Newman Club, and Crimson Key.
WPI’s Global Perspectives program offers students the opportunity to complete their projects at dozens of project centers worldwide. I’m not sure of exactly why I chose London over the others. While Australia and Denmark were high on my list, I believe that the main reason I chose London is because it is at a cultural crossroads in Europe. While offering the excitement of a bustling city, London is also renowned for its museums and monuments. This opportunity from WPI will not only allow me to visit the city as a tourist, but to actually experience it as one of its inhabitants. During my IQP I will live in Chelsea for seven weeks. My home will be IES, a residence hall for international students located right in London’s central borough. Five days of each week will be devoted to research and completion of my project. The weekends will afford opportunities to experience the sights and sounds of England’s largest metropolis, along with its shops, pubs, and world-famous museums. I am certainly thrilled just to get my first opportunity to visit England, but I am equally excited about the project work I will complete during this upcoming academic term.
My project involves investigating the use of overnight lighting in commercial shops and offices as part of a global effort to reduce carbon emissions and reverse global warming. You see, global warming is becoming an increasing worldwide problem because excess carbon in the earth’s atmosphere prevents the sun’s energy from escaping after it reflects off the earth. The source of this excess carbon is emissions that occur as a result of burning fossil fuels, which is necessary to produce energy economically. The United Kingdom is leading the effort to reduce carbon emissions by funding programs that investigate the use of energy and its impact on carbon emissions. The relationships between energy use and carbon emissions must be understood together in order to develop effective policy to counter global warming. Previous studies show that buildings account for about half the energy use in the UK, and are consequently responsible for about half of the carbon emissions. While energy use in domestic buildings has been studied in great depth in the past, little is known about the energy use in non-domestic buildings. My project sponsor, an organization known as Carbon Reduction in Buildings (CaRB) is working with the University College London to develop a socio-technical model that will predict carbon emissions throughout Great Britain. A lot of data must be gathered to develop such an extensive model, however, and my IQP will gather a very specific portion of that data. We will research how overnight lighting is used in shops and offices throughout London so as to contribute to the understanding of energy use in commercial buildings. As I mentioned, little is known about this topic, and no one has ever conducted a study such as this, so this is really cutting-edge research.
I have spent the last term preparing for the project in a preliminary social-science research course. My three teammates and I wrote a series of papers explaining the background information necessary to understand the entire scope of the project. Furthermore, the instructor and our project advisors introduced us to research techniques that included everything from proper sampling to developing surveys for conducting research. The whole course culminated in our final project proposal, which included our proposed methods for completing the project. We determined that we will narrow our research to a specific section of the city that includes a mix of building type that is generally representative of the rest of the city. Next we will apply a stratified sampling technique, meaning we will select buildings of certain types that we will include in our study. London is a very big place, after all, and we couldn’t conduct a census of lighting use in every building in just seven weeks. Once we know which buildings to look at, we will then conduct surveys with building managers to determine how they use lighting, why they use it in the way they do, and gather data that will allow us to figure out how much energy their lighting actually uses. If it seems like a lot to do in just one term, then it is – keep in mind that we will only have general guidance from our advisors, and all the research and preparation we will need to do on our own. Moreover, we will supplement our survey data with data gathered from observations of lighting use from high points above the city. It will be a lot of work, but I imagine it will be incredibly rewarding as well. A stay in London affords other opportunities as well, however.
While staying in Europe, it would be a shame if we didn’t visit other world-class tourist destinations as well. For example, I write this sitting on a plane to Wroclaw, Poland, where I will spend a week visiting family. Accompanying me is Laura, a close friend from WPI who will be completing her IQP at the London Museum of Science. We’re taking a bit of a detour before continuing on to the UK, however, to get a taste of another part of the continent. Our travels won’t end there, however. One four-day weekend that’s built into our project schedule will almost certainly entail another visit to the European mainland, with intercontinental travel being extremely affordable. Finally, our tickets home are from Paris, several days after the conclusion of our projects; a train will carry us under the English Channel and into the heart of France.
I can barely begin to describe my excitement at the moment, though the trip has already encountered its share of misadventure. Our flight was supposed to depart yesterday, but was cancelled forcing us to leave a day later. Nonetheless, I’m sure we will encounter plenty of good times, and perhaps a few unforeseen challenges. Check back each week for an update of everything that happens and upcoming plans. I’ll be sure to keep everyone posted on the project and the adventure.
Until next time,
Tom
somewhere over the Atlantic
