Vincent’s Laurie Grove Bath Data Jam Research Results

Introduction

I’ve chosen to gather data on consumption of material and immaterial things by the Laurie Grove Bath and to try to give all other group members the easiest access to it. Consumption comprises in this case material things like water and immaterial things like electricity or FM radio signals. As I’m already well introduced into the concept of relational databases (and also the MySQL database management system) I tried to explore other ways to store the data and hope that others will feel incited to make use of it

Representation of Data

As mentioned above, I tried to represent data in a non-tabular way, and found more than one solution, which I will introduce here cursory:

• Random Function
  
  Some data like the status messages of movement sensors can be best represented by a random function. This function generates a random value between 0 and 1 and compares the result with a predefined numeric variable with a value between 0 and 1. In case the random number is smaller or equal than the numeric variable 1 will be returned otherwise 0.
• Periodical Function
  Other parts of the covered data is periodical and is also very simple to represent in a Perl method. This method will be called with a time indicating parameter and returns if the status of the consumption at the given time.
• Mathematical Representation (Statistical Approximation)
  Another method to represent information is the form of a mathematical function. In particular I’ve used the non-linear regression analysis to retrieve out of a sample of related values a mathematical function, which will not only cover the sample data but all values between the sampled data.
• Live Data
  The last method to represent data

Represented Data

The following section explains in further detail the represented data. Most of the functions are already realized in a Perl example

Raw Data

It was possible to get hold of the following key figures of consumption. On this data some of the . Thanks for the helping people to retrieve this numbers

Data for Financial year 06/07 is:
Energy consumption:

Electricity
Used KwH 		130,287
Cost 			£ 11,106

Gas
Used KwH 		750,965
Cost 			£ 25,626

Water
Water Used: 		146m3
Waste Water 		146m3
Cost 			£ 430

Movement Detectors

Status: Done

The LGB is secured by an alarm system which comprises more than one movement detectors. Those detectors consume power and can be seen out of this reason as part of my research project. Scrutinizing these sensors I found to possible data sources which I could represent for further project. Next to the continuous power consumption needed for the operation the sensors send a signal if someone or something moves in their observation radius. This signal of activity seemed to me far more interesting and a good candidate for a representation by a random function.

Electricity and Water Consumption

Status: Electricity: Done, Water: Not done yet

As I’ve got only yearly figures on the consumption of water and electricity I had to calculate the daily usage of water or power and the guess a distribution of the usage of them during the day. Basing on this assumption which looked like (time is seconds from 0:00) this

Time 	Consumption of Power in KW/H
0	6
3600	5
7200	4
10800	4
14400	5
18000	7
21600	9,8
25200	11,2
28800	13
32400	15
36000	17
39600	21
43200	23
…

I could with the help of a mathematical program called “Graph” interpolate a polynominal function which represents the consumption of water or electricity of the LGB

f(x)=8.5303654E-93*x^20 + 1.0676401E-86*x^19 - 4.6480158E-81*x^18 + 4.4422658E-76*x^17 +
5.0305359E-71*x^16 - 1.2326941E-65*x^15 + 5.9061408E-61*x^14 + 4.1528408E-56*x^13 -
5.285163E-51*x^12 + 1.6155833E-46*x^11 - 5.8320484E-42*x^10 + 1.4573385E-36*x^9 -
1.4989895E-31*x^8 + 7.8930969E-27*x^7 - 2.474806E-22*x^6 + 4.8413829E-18*x^5 -
5.8897369E-14*x^4 + 4.2691101E-10*x^3 - 1.6333479E-06*x^2 + 0.0021441309*x + 5.9974494;

x = Elapsed seconds from 0:00 
F(x) = y = approximate value of consumption at the moment x

Flushing Urinal

Status: Done

The men’s bathroom on the ground floor is equipped with a urinal which flushes in a regular interval for a certain length of time. This is a form of consumption which is covered by another Perl function.

FM Radio Activity

Status: Not done, yet …

Lastly, I’ve thought that I also could cover the possible consumption of non-material things a electro-magnetic waves, as they could be found in the FM radio frequencies. My plan is to use a pocket radio and the Arduino board to let a Perl script know of the tuned-in radio stations amplitude. This should provide a continuously changing data source for other projects.

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