Week 6 Tutorial: Sizing preservation, then assembling Assignment 1
Week 6 tutorial — size the store that moves the glut into the trough, then turn five weeks of unknowns into the measurement register Assignment 1 is built from
15 April 2027
What this tutorial is for#
Two things, and the second is the bigger one. First, size preservation — the storage term between a harvest curve and a flat consumption curve. Then assemble the measurement register, which is Assignment 1.
Story stage. The last scoping week. Assignment 1 is due at 5 pm on the Friday of week 7, so this is the session where it comes together and next week’s is the last chance to fix it.
Open these first#
- Your workbook, all four sheets. Today you write mostly on sheet 3.
- The measurement primer — its tables give the units, frequencies and honest accuracies your register rows need.
- The Assignment 1 brief — everything you assemble today is a numbered item in it.
- Week 6’s lecture for the harvest curve method.
If you missed earlier weeks#
You can still do the second half, which is the assessed part and the part that becomes your assignment. For the first half use PRACTICE — Wattle Street, a harvest curve peaking at 30 kg in March against a flat consumption of 8 kg a month. Invented round numbers for teaching.
The words this week uses#
- Harvest curve — your twelve-row monthly yield, from week 2’s planted area.
- Consumption curve — flat, because households eat at a steady rate.
- Surplus — the area above the consumption line. Deficit — the area below it. Storage is sized on the smaller of the two: you cannot store more than you grew, and you gain nothing storing more than you will eat.
- Measurement register — sheet 3 of your workbook. One row per measurement, ten columns, no blanks.
Do this — part one, preservation (35 minutes)#
1. Draw both curves on one axis. Harvest by month, consumption flat.
2. Size the store in kilograms and litres, and give it a floor area. A capacity with no floor area is not sited, and week 12 will ask where it went.
3. Then the losses. Nobody has a sourced number for trimming, fermentation and spoilage, and the course does not supply one. State yours, say where it came from, and be prepared to defend the order of magnitude rather than the digit.
4. Then the energy. Adelaide and Canberra students will find their bench sits in band at ambient and their load is zero. Darwin and Alice Springs students will not, and the control load they write down here is one of the few things that can push a design over 5 kWh/day.
We do not make anything, and this course gives no general fermentation rule. If you want to ferment at home, use a tested recipe under its own conditions; the lecture explains why.
Do this — part two, assembling Assignment 1 (55 minutes)#
5. List the decisions first. Go back through weeks 1 to 5 and write the decisions, not the measurements: connect the house roof or not; keep fish or not; rear larvae indoors or outdoors; plant zone G3 or leave it lawn. Eight to twelve decisions is typical.
6. Then attach measurements to them. Every unknown row on sheet 1, every
operating condition from week 5, every factor you took on faith from a lecture.
Fill sheet 3 completely — a row missing any column is an incomplete row:
| id | what_is_measured | decision_it_informs | method | location | units | frequency | accuracy_or_resolution | equipment_cost_aud | service_cost_aud |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| M01 | tank water level | whether the house roof is worth connecting | pressure level sensor, monthly manual dip as the check | existing 5 kL tank, garage roof | kL | hourly logged | ±3 % of full scale, about 150 L | 180 | 0 |
7. Cross-check both ways. Two passes, and both find something:
- Every row points at a decision. A measurement no decision depends on is money spent to fill a spreadsheet — delete it.
- Every decision has at least one row. A decision with nothing behind it is a guess wearing a number — add one, or say openly that you will settle it on published figures and why that is good enough.
8. Total the cost. Equipment plus services against the $1,500 investigation allowance. Your own hours are scheduled, not charged. State the total, state the headroom, and write down what you dropped and why — the dropped list is marked.
The output#
A sized preservation store with its floor area and any control load, and a measurement register on sheet 3 with at least twelve complete rows, costed inside the allowance.
Check your own before you submit#
- Is the store sized on the smaller of surplus and deficit?
- Are the loss terms stated as assumptions with a reason, on sheet 4?
- Is any temperature-control load in watts and hours, flagged for week 12?
- Does every row on sheet 3 have all ten columns filled?
- Does every decision on your list have at least one measurement row?
- Does the programme total under $1,500, and is the headroom written down?
- Have you written down what you dropped?
Where it goes next#
Week 7 is the last working session before Assignment 1 is due on the Friday. Bring this register as a draft, not a blank page.
The spec
What earns the checkpoint. Every line is written so you can tell whether you have met it without asking anyone.
- your surplus is derived from week 2's monthly yield curve against flat consumption
- preservation capacity is stated in kilograms and litres, with a floor area
- any temperature-control load is quantified and flagged for the week 12 energy budget
- sheet 3 carries at least twelve measurement rows with every column filled
- every row on sheet 3 names the decision it informs, and every decision has at least one row
- your programme totals inside the $1,500 investigation allowance, with the headroom stated
Teaching team
- Noor Bakhshi — tutor