Kilo What?

An interactive exhibit allowing users to investigate energy saving measures around the home.

Built for the Institute of Physics this dolls house is fitted with a number of appliances, each represented by an LED. The devices can be powered from the grid, from solar panels on its roof or from a wind turbine. Users can select how to power the devices and how much power is being used from each of the sources, as well as being able to see what they can power using renewable sources only and investigate why they can not power devices such as the tumble drier.

The wind turbine actually forms a major part of the experiment in its own right. Users can make their own blades or use a variety of pre-designed blades, adjust their angles and adjust how many are used. The output of the turbine is shown with LEDs but is also fed into the house and converted into kW for the users.

The final part of the experiment is that users can turn on or off a number of power saving measures in the house and watch how this affects the overall power consumption.

For more information, visit Lab In A Lorry.