As residents switched the lighting mode of the Home Depot Smart Home from “all-on” to “partay,” partygoers hit the dance floor Friday to celebrate the two-year anniversary of the building’s completion.
The party’s main objective was for people to enjoy themselves, said junior Kelvin Gu, president of Smart Home, but residents also hoped the party would draw people who are not in the Smart Home Program to learn more about the live-in research laboratory. The house’s pre-programmed customized lighting system was just one of the many attractions that non-residents were able to observe.
“We want to show people what Smart Home has to offer, and that it is not just a place for engineers,” said senior Andrew First, vice president of Smart Home.
First said the party helped Smart Home achieve that goal.
John Kear, a Trinity freshman who plans to major in history, said he was impressed by how the house was able to act as a test bed for innovative technology projects, while still retaining a “homey” feeling.
Smart Home residents can take a shower heated by its solar hot water system and enjoy its media room replete with three LCD televisions and walls that are highly acoustic for enhanced sound effects.
“I am seriously considering applying to live in it,” Kear said.
Recruiting non-engineering students like Kear into the Smart Home Program has been one of Director Jim Gaston’s main goals. He said it is very important that the projects Smart Home undertakes are addressed from interdisciplinary perspectives.
As Smart Home turns two, Gu said that this interdisciplinary sense of community is one of the program’s greatest achievements.
Some of the projects underway at Smart Home include a wireless power service system, which will automatically charges iPods, cell phones and laptops on a single platform. Additionally, the Radio Frequency Identification project is able to detect the whereabouts of Smart Home residents. The RFID sensor can adjust media settings by playing playlists of the residents’ favorite songs when they are in the shower.
As music blasted Friday, Gu said the Smart Home is on its way to becoming an incubator for student-based research projects and a home for green and hi-tech inventors and entrepreneurs.
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