Energized for the Quarter
All my courses this winter quarter are related to energy. First, the entertaining Dr. Gil Masters teaches Energy Efficiency in Buildings, which focuses on smaller scale residential buildings. We learn about materials, efficiency calculations, energy solutions, etc. We will be using the astonishing feature-rich (and free!) Google Sketch-Up to create our own efficient home design. What’s neat is that you can set your model’s location and then watch the shadows based on the day in the year and time. This is useful for studying where shadows fall for solar heating.
Next up is Grid Integration of Renewable Energy Sources, taught by a visiting British professor who was an electric power engineer. He’s very knowledgeable and very British (from what I can tell anyway), but in a good way.
And finally, Renewable Energy Sources – Fuel Cells & Photovoltaics. This one is the EE course (what department am I in again?), and is going to go over fuel cells and then photovoltaics it seems towards the end. I have a feeling this will require mostly out-of-class learning.
I’m finishing this up with a continuation of Hindi. This course lineup will let me really dig into this sector and, with two of the courses being in the Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) department, a chance to expand my network on campus.
Donny Said,
January 12, 2009 @ 8:11 am
nice! CE courses take 2 out of 4.