Advanced Sustainable Home Water Management Through Gamification and Mobile Application

Ben D Radhakrishnan; S.R. Subramanya

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Conference: 2015 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition
Location: Seattle, Washington
Publication Date: June 14, 2015
Start Date: June 14, 2015
End Date: June 17, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-692-50180-1
ISSN: 2153-5965
Conference Session: Engineering Management Division Technical Session 3
Tagged Division: Engineering Management
Page Count: 18
Page Numbers: 26.160.1 - 26.160.18
DOI: 10.18260/p.23499
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/23499
Download Count: 667

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Paper Authors

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Ben D Radhakrishnan National University

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Prof. Ben D Radhakrishnan is currently a full time Faculty in the School of Engineering, Technology and Media (SETM), National University, San Diego, California, USA. He is the Lead Faculty for MS Sustainability Management Program. He develops and teaches Engineering and Sustainability Management graduate level courses. Ben has taught Sustainability workshops in Los Angeles (Army) and San Diego (SDGE). His special interests and research include promoting Leadership in Sustainability Practices, energy management of Data Centers and to establish Sustainable strategies for enterprises. He is an Affiliate Researcher at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, focusing on the energy efficiency of IT Equipment in a Data Centers.
As a means of promoting student-centric learning, Prof. Radhakrishnan has successfully introduced games in to his sustainability classes where students demonstrate the 3s of sustainability, namely, Environment, Economics and Equity, through games. Students learn about conservation (energy, water, waste, equity, etc.) through games and quantifying the results. He has published papers on this subject and presented them in conferences.
Before his teaching career, he had a very successful corporate management career working in R&D at Lucent Technologies and as the Director of Global Technology Management at Qualcomm. He had initiated and managed software development for both the companies in India.
Prof. Radhakrishnan holds Masters Degrees (M.Tech, M.S., M.B.A) and Sustainable Business Practices certification from University of California San Diego.

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S.R. Subramanya

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Abstract

Advanced Sustainable Home Water Management through Gamification and Mobile ApplicationAbstractIt is no secret that the entire California state is now in a dire dry spell. Rainfall and snowfalls arewell below seasonal averages for several years and much of the state has declared water-altersand mandatory water cut-backs. Higher education and other teaching institutions have a moralresponsibility to educate their students on the issue of water management through innovativeteaching methods. Teaching and research methods on water conservation and efficient useshould go across disciplines to take advantage of the technologies, methods and models fromdifferent disciplines.National University’s School of Engineering and Computing programs include SustainabilityManagement, Computer Science and Information Technologies. The graduate program inSustainability Management focuses on the modern definition of Sustainable Developmentcovering Environment, Economics and Equity. Computer Science and Information technologyprograms are ripe with teaching the latest in their fields.This paper will focus on the teaching of current methodologies used in sustainabilitymanagement to teach home water management using a highly interactive and game–likeapproach, where the 3 Es of sustainability – Environment, Economics and Equity aredemonstrated. Students use this approach to quantify conservation in water and other resourcesas well – e.g. energy. This approach has received very favorable feedback from the students.This paper will focus on the implementation of the gaming approach to Home WaterManagement through software modelling for a mobile application with three main components–(a) computation/evaluation engine, (b) database interface, and (c) user interface for interactivityand game–like features. The overall architecture of the system is shown below.The database contains data from the city, county, and EPA (environmental protection agency)related to consumption, cost, etc. The computation/evaluation engine does numerouscomputations which essentially produce results consisting of conservation information andsuggestions, as well as larger pictures of sustainability. The user interface is an importantcomponent which supports high level of interactivity, game-like features, and support for variousscenario evaluations.Using the real–world database and an engaging user interface supporting numerous scenarioevaluations, the system supports engaged learning of the complex interrelationships of numerousparameters in water conservation in the bigger picture of sustainability that will be available notonly to the student learning population but to the general public via the mobile app.

Citation
Format

Radhakrishnan, B. D., & Subramanya, S. (2015, June), Advanced Sustainable Home Water Management Through Gamification and Mobile Application Paper presented at 2015 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Seattle, Washington. 10.18260/p.23499

TY  - CPAPER
AB  -                Advanced Sustainable Home Water Management through                      Gamification and Mobile ApplicationAbstractIt is no secret that the entire California state is now in a dire dry spell. Rainfall and snowfalls arewell below seasonal averages for several years and much of the state has declared water-altersand mandatory water cut-backs. Higher education and other teaching institutions have a moralresponsibility to educate their students on the issue of water management through innovativeteaching methods. Teaching and research methods on water conservation and efficient useshould go across disciplines to take advantage of the technologies, methods and models fromdifferent disciplines.National University’s School of Engineering and Computing programs include SustainabilityManagement, Computer Science and Information Technologies. The graduate program inSustainability Management focuses on the modern definition of Sustainable Developmentcovering Environment, Economics and Equity. Computer Science and Information technologyprograms are ripe with teaching the latest in their fields.This paper will focus on the teaching of current methodologies used in sustainabilitymanagement to teach home water management using a highly interactive and game–likeapproach, where the 3 Es of sustainability – Environment, Economics and Equity aredemonstrated. Students use this approach to quantify conservation in water and other resourcesas well – e.g. energy. This approach has received very favorable feedback from the students.This paper will focus on the implementation of the gaming approach to Home WaterManagement through software modelling for a mobile application with three main components–(a) computation/evaluation engine, (b) database interface, and (c) user interface for interactivityand game–like features. The overall architecture of the system is shown below.The database contains data from the city, county, and EPA (environmental protection agency)related to consumption, cost, etc. The computation/evaluation engine does numerouscomputations which essentially produce results consisting of conservation information andsuggestions, as well as larger pictures of sustainability. The user interface is an importantcomponent which supports high level of interactivity, game-like features, and support for variousscenario evaluations.Using the real–world database and an engaging user interface supporting numerous scenarioevaluations, the system supports engaged learning of the complex interrelationships of numerousparameters in water conservation in the bigger picture of sustainability that will be available notonly to the student learning population but to the general public via the mobile app.
AU  - Ben D Radhakrishnan
AU  - S.R. Subramanya
CY  - Seattle, Washington
DA  - 2015/06/14
PB  - ASEE Conferences
TI  - Advanced Sustainable Home Water Management Through Gamification and Mobile Application
UR  - https://peer.asee.org/23499
DO  - 10.18260/p.23499
ER  -