Automated Dorm Room Causes a School Inquiry 170
Posted
by
samzenpus
from the dorm-of-tomorrow dept.
from the dorm-of-tomorrow dept.
First time accepted submitter ElectronicHouseGrant writes "Freshman Derek Low rigged up his Berkeley dorm room with something he calls B.R.A.D., which is short for 'Berkeley Ridiculously Automated Dorm.' The room includes automated lighting, drapes, music, motion detection, and more. He can control everything through voice recognition, but a wireless remote, his iPhone and his iPad are also in on the control party. Derek started the install on February 4 and finished just a few days ago."
Re:School inquiry? (Score:5, Informative)
Ya... terrible title doesn't match summary or linked article. News at 11.
/.ed (Score:5, Informative)
Oh that's right.. unlike the submitter or the eds.. I can use google.
http://www.livescience.com/20048-ridiculously-automated-dorm-room.html [livescience.com]
http://www.berkeleyside.com/2012/05/01/cal-student-creates-a-ridiculously-automated-dorm/ [berkeleyside.com]
http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-video-berkeleys-most-ridiculously-automated-dorm-room-ever-20120501,0,2225746.story [latimes.com]
Re:School inquiry? (Score:5, Informative)
Here [livescience.com] is a more complete article.
Re:School inquiry? (Score:5, Informative)
Not very hard to guess the problem.
Take a look a the third or so pic on http://lab.dereklow.co/brad/ [dereklow.co] The one with the light switch hanging out of the wall as he screws around with the wiring. If he could have just stuck to plug in modules like everyone else, but no he has to go all amateur electrician... I love this quote "With no access to the circuit breakers of the dorms, the contacts and wiring inside the wall switch remains live even as I open and try to modify it.". This dude is the stereotype of nothing is more dangerous than a programmer with a screwdriver... damn...
Screwing around with the drapes might have pissed them off too. Worst case is losing some security deposit unless he can return it all exactly to original operation.
Oh and the fog machine. My dorm didn't allow gasoline and oil products in the rooms, to discourage people from putting their scooter in the room, or doing oil changes in the dorms. Maybe they're worked up about fog juice and treating it as automotive lubrication oil.
ALS Residence Initiative (Score:5, Informative)
The Residence was designed by my friend Steve Saling [youtube.com] with his own long-term care requirements in mind. The building is stuffed with automation equipment from PEAC [peacpc.com] which enables people, who can only use their eyes to control a computer, to open doors, operate lights, call an elevator, or summon assistance (among other operations). The Residence is the first of its kind, and the ALSRI is committed to building these across the USA. The second facility is to be built near Atlanta, GA.
Re:School inquiry? (Score:2, Informative)
Don't be ridiculous. I was replacing wall outlets and light switches at that age, sometimes without turning the power off. It's easy, you just be really careful (so you don't short something and make sparks), and wear some rubber gloves. It's only 110V so as long as you're not wet and wearing rubber-soled shoes, it can't hurt you, only give you a small jolt. Obviously it's better to turn off the breaker if you can, but it's not that big a deal if you can't. Not sure I'd try this with 220V systems however.
Re:School inquiry? (Score:3, Informative)
Actually, no it doesn't. Maybe you should go read about Ohm's Law; current is a product of voltage and resistance. Voltage is fixed at 110VAC, so resistance controls current. Your skin resistance when dry is too high for current to be dangerous. The only way 110V is going to kill you is if you're playing with it while in the bathtub (which indeed is how most deaths by electricity occur I believe: people using a blow dryer while in the bath tub; the lethal combination of water + 110V is why kitchens and bathrooms are required to have GFCI outlets now).
Re:School inquiry? (Score:5, Informative)
Your skin resistance when dry is too high for current to be dangerous. The only way 110V is going to kill you is if you're playing with it while in the bathtub...
Bull. Fucking. Shit.
Connect one finger to hot and one to neutral, and experience first hand how much current flows, and the pain and muscle spasms it causes. Now imagine that flowing from one hand to the other across your chest, through your heart.
I don't know where the hell you got this horribly dangerous misinformation, nor how the hell it got modded informative, but please shut the hell up. 110V most certainly can kill people who are not wet, and is documented to do so.
The reason that kitchens and bathrooms are required to have GFCI is that the addition of water makes even minor leakage current from defective appliances potentially lethal.
Re:School inquiry? (Score:5, Informative)
oltage against high resistance is known to produce large amounts of heat (that's how stove plates work)
No, not quite. Power dissipated (in this case the "heat") is V^2/R. Higher resistance means less power. Stove elements work by putting mains voltage across a fairly low resistance, causing plenty of current, power, and heat. In actuality, 110 Vrms is not enough to produce much in the way of a burn.
Now, you are correct about the bloodstream being a good conductor. It is quite rare that a live wire will directly contact the bloodstream, though -- but it does not need to. The resistance of human skin is non-linear, and is actually lower at higher voltages. Additionally, there is plenty of capacitance involved in the body's circuit*, meaning that the full impedance at 60 Hz is lower than just the DC resistance. If there is a route through the heart, and the "let-go threshold" has been exceeded, then even 110 V can be deadly -- no burns necessary.
*The human body model capacitance is only 150 pF, but this represents the body's capacitance to the outside world. The actual capacitance through a narrow layer of skin is many orders of magnitude higher, though I can't get a good source for the actual value.
60 mA to the heart can be fatal (Score:5, Informative)
Lethality of electric shock depends on way, way too many factors to make blanket statements such as above. For example, according to wikipedia [wikipedia.org], for a large contact area and dry skin, 5% of the population has a hand-to-hand impedance of 1,200 Ohms. 110/1200 ~ 100 mA, which is significantly above the 60 mA threshold for a fatal shock to the heart. 50% of the population are just about at the threshold. Also, broken skin, sweaty skin, duration of contact, etc. are all factors. This is also why you should never break the ground pin off of an electrical plug. Case in point: a Cleveland State prof. died in 2006 after touching a lamp with a broken-off ground pin [nmsu.edu].
Re:60 mA to the heart can be fatal (Score:4, Informative)
This is also why you should never break the ground pin off of an electrical plug.
Yep. Also, installing a 3-prong outlet onto an old 2-wire circuit with the ground disconnected presents the same hazard, just disguised so future users can't know about it without looking in the walls.
But a useful tidbit, installing a GFCI outlet in that situation is safe, and even code-compliant ;-)