BYOE: An Evaporative Cooler with Virtual Connectivity

Abstract

One of the challenges in online education is enabling experimentation and laboratory-oriented coursework in an online environment. In this Bring Your Own Experiment session, we introduce an experimental setup that enables remote-learning students to gain thermodynamics-related technical skills. We use a setup that has an evaporative cooler to teach these skills. The setup incorporates a clear polycarbonate tubing that houses an evaporative cooler pad, an axial fan that continuously blows air onto the pad, and sensors to measure thermodynamic properties upstream and the downstream of the pad. The evaporative pad is kept wet by maintaining a continuous perfusion of water via a peristaltic pump. Sensors include temperature and humidity sensors. The sensors are connected to a microcontroller that has a Wi-Fi connectivity. All sensor data and a camera feed, which shows the experimental setup, are fed into a cloud storage using Internet of Things technology while the experimental setup is kept at our institution. Basically, with this apparatus, the data flows from the microcontroller to a Google sheet, and students remotely access this data. The remote students calculate the efficiency of the evaporative cooler and find the efficiency for the given volumetric flow rate and evaporative pad setup. This experiment is conducted as a part of a junior-level engineering experimentation course in a technological university. The deliverable of this experiment is a short report that requires the students to obtain the learning objectives associated with, • the use of a psychrometric chart to find the wet bulb temperature, and • the components associated with calculating the cooling efficiency, We implemented this experimental setup as one of the possible student laboratory exercise in an engineering experimentation course. We had nine students complete this optional assignment in a class of 89 students. We measured student engagement with a survey and analyzed student work. Students liked the mode of data acquisition and student success was high. We believe this methodology is particularly important when delivering experimentation remotely, including our current pandemic situation.