The Engineering Computation Laboratory

Energy2D

Energy2D is a two-dimensional interactive heat transfer simulation program. Students can use Energy2D as an inquiry tool to investigate heat flow and energy usage in 2D model systems.

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Energy3D

Energy3D presents an easy-to-use 3D user interface for designing and making model buildings. Students can build a house, a skyscraper, and even an entire village. Energy3D allows students to “print out” a design and use it to build a physical model.

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Infrared Imaging

Visualize the invisible energy transfer processes in everyday life using handheld IR cameras.

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The Green Building Kit

Design, construct, test, and improve a model house step-by-step to achieve energy efficiency.

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Modeling & Design

Sensing & Imaging

Resources

News

Virtual Solar Grid

(4/11/2018) You are invited to join a global community of Energy3D users to model existing or design new solar energy systems and contribute them to the Virtual Solar Grid to crowdsource an unprecedented fine-grained, time-dependent, and multi-scale computational model for exploring how much of humanity's energy need can be met by solar power.

The Virtual Solar Grid

Infrared Street View & SmartIR

(10/19/2016) The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and CLEAResult announced that the Infrared Street View Project was the winner of the 2016 JUMP Smartphone Innovation Challenge. More information about the project can be found in this blog post.

Virtual Infrared Reality (VIR)

SimBuilding

(10/21/2015) SimBuilding is a simulation game for teaching building science, currently under development at the Concord Consortium. SimBuilding is based on JavaScript and WebGL.

Screenshots of SimBuilding

Energy3D in Colombia

(10/9/2015) Camilo Vieira Mejia, a PhD student of Purdue University, brought our Energy3D software to a workshop of Clubes de Ciencia, an initiative where graduate students come to Colombia and share science and engineering concepts with high school students from small towns around Antioquia. According to him, students "are truly enjoying Energy3D!"

Students in Colombia use Energy3D

Put engineering design processes under a "big data microscope"

(10/1/2013) How do people learn engineering design? How do we know they are learning? What are the conceptual and procedural bottlenecks? What are the best instructional strategies to overcome these bottlenecks? Before we can answer these questions, we must develop methodologies for capturing and measuring student performance. Utilizing our Energy3D CAD tool, we are developing computational process analytics that can reveal student learning patterns from what they do, what they make, and what they say.

Energy3D in the classroom

InfraMation Keynote Address

(11/6/2012) Dr. Charles Xie delivered a keynote speech at the Opening Plenary of InfraMation, the world's largest conference on infrared imaging. Charles presented several original scientific discoveries based on IR imaging and proposed the concept of educational imaging. We are proud to be at the leading edge of applied IR imaging and glad that our contributions have been recognized by the industry.

Here is a link to his presentation slides. Also check out our Infrared Tube website for IR imaging videos for science experiments!

InfraMation in Orlando, FL, November 6-8, 2012

Download our hand-out model house

(4/28/2012) The following images link to two PDF files that contain a template for cutting out and assembling the model house shown to the right. They just have different textures. Choose one to download and print. Then assemble the house yourself. For best results, print them on cardstock. Using "Legal" size cardstock will result in a larger house that may be easier to build. If you want to design and make your own model houses, go to our Energy3D website to download the software, watch a tutorial video, and get started!

A hand-out model house for the 2012 USA Science and Engineering Festival, April 28-29, Washington, DC (Click here to download the Energy3D model for this house.)

A village of model houses for the 2012 USA Science & Engineering Festival

(4/20/2012) Huge thanks to Jeanne Hurtz, our village of model houses is ready! Click an image to see an enlarged picture.

One day at Fitchburg High School

(2/18/2012) Fifteen students from Fitchburg and Gardner in Massachusetts participated in a one-day activity at Fitchburg High School hosted by Mount Wachusett Community College. They designed model houses using our Energy3D software, printed and assembled them, and performed energy inspection using IR cameras. According to Andrew Goodwin, Director of the Gear Up Program at Mount Wachusett Community College, "it really was a great activity for the kids and I know they surely appreciate it and had a great time. I know that I was really impressed by the caliber of the program and I hope that in the future you will be willing to come out and do other activities with our group."

Teacher workshop 2012

(1/20/2012) Teachers from Arlington High School, Bromfield School, Nashoba Regional High School, and North Reading High School participated in a professional development workshop to prepare for our large-scale field tests in the spring. Each teacher ran the experiments and simulations. Each also designed and built a model house. In the field tests scheduled in the spring with the classes of these teachers, we will test our research hypothesis that CAD/CAM tools empower students to explore the design space more efficiently and more deeply.

CAD/CAM in the classroom

(12/10/2011) In a pilot test, 15 students in an engineering class at Arlington High School used our Energy3D software to design and make model houses. This pilot test was used to examine how well Energy3D worked in the classroom. Below are all the computer models the five teams designed with Energy3D and the corresponding model houses made using Energy3D's printing feature.

Project Highlights

Boston Globe

Arlington Advocate

NSTA Reports

InfraMation Keynote

YouTube Physics
Norrköpings Tidningar
JCE Cover
JCE Highlight

Miscellaneous

NARST 2015

NARST 2013

EEE Poster 2012

Energy2D & Energy3D Brochure

Engineering Energy Efficiency Brochure

Student Reactions

“The thing I loved most about the Solarize Your World project was how realistic it felt. I really liked how you could build your own house and customize it the way you would in real life. I also liked how it wasn't too confusing. Most of the symbols looked like what they actually were. For example, the wall icon up at the top looked like a brick wall and when you clicked on it, that was what it was meant to be.”
—Groton-Dunstable Regional Middle School, 2018
“What I enjoyed most about the project was that I could build my own house, and work on already existing ones. This was fun because I love to build digitally, but also when I added the solar panels, that was super interesting and I learned some science. It was a win win!”
—Groton-Dunstable Regional Middle School, 2018
“I liked watching the simulations, you could see what actually happens — you can't see it like that in a book.”
—Arlington High School, 2012
“The 3D designing was very helpful as we could customize the house as we wanted to or as we needed to.”
—Arlington High School, 2012
“When you could watch the sun, it was cool to see how it would affect the house.”
—Arlington High School, 2012
“I enjoyed graphing temperature data with the Logger Lite data graph on the computer. I had never used such a program, but it was very easy to get used to it and I quickly understood how to interpret the information on the graph and the relationships between the two temperature sensors used at times.”
—Arlington High School, 2011
“I would have to say the part of the Engineering Energy Efficiency Project I enjoyed the most was seeing the drastic change in temperature minor modifications made.”
—Arlington High School, 2011
“I really enjoyed comparing my test results with other classmates. It made building the second model a competition to find out whose house was the most energy efficient.”
—Nashoba Regional High School, 2011
“I enjoyed building the house and watching the graphs. It was a little difficult because I didn't understand what was going on. But towards the end I got it.”
—Nashoba Regional High School, 2011
“These pages gave me a visual understanding and comparison of conduction, convection, and radiation. The simulations were most helpful in developing this understanding.”
—Belmont High School, 2010

Teacher Reactions

“This was one of the best and most memorable professional development experiences I have had in many decades as an educator. Every participant I spoke to felt respected and that they had many useful ways of participating and contributing, and were sent away with an abundance of immediately useful resources.”
—Participant of the Rockport Workshop, 2017
“Thought it was one of the best conferences I have ever attended and gave some real world projects that can be implemented in my school... the Consortium was great at presenting the info in a useful way.”
—Participant of the Rockport Workshop, 2017
“The workshop was one of the most useful I have ever attended and I have been teaching for 17 years.”
—Participant of the Rockport Workshop, 2017