Project Information

Grade category: 7-9

Team size: 1

Subject Area: Energy Sciences

Project Type: Experimental

Language: English

Project Summary: As our desire for convenience and luxury, products incorporated more electronics. The assumption that electricity was plentiful allowed designers to create circuits that drew power when off. This energy use when appliances are off is called a phantom load. What this project will try to do is to quantify and confirm that there are phantom loads in the majority of household appliances. This project will show that phantom loads are not trivial and the cost of these loads is considerable.

Software Tools: Go Livel, Microsoft Excel, Adobe Photoshop

Hardware Tools: Ammeter/Voltmeter, Splitter cable

Source of Idea: Looking at a VCR and wondering how much power it takes

Special Skills: Microsoft excel, Photoshop, Go Live usage and reading an Ammeter/Voltmeter