The development of the HVAC Learning Playground started with the desire to make the “HVAC Fundamentals” course more appealing to AE juniors. For several years, the HVAC industry has stressed the need for more students who specialized in the AE mechanical option. Srebric believed that if students could see and experience HVAC equipment in action, this number would increase. “[Srebric] approached me one day with the idea for the HVAC Learning Playground, and in seconds we were tossing around ideas about contraptions, devices, and experiments that students could “play” with in order to gain a feel for what different types of HVAC equipment do and to learn how moist air (psychrometric) processes work,” says Nawrocki. “The main idea was to have a fun place where students could put their paper problems and solutions regarding HVAC systems into action and physical practice, [and] where students might even be inspired by mechanical system work.”

Nawrocki, with Srebric as her supervisor, applied to ASHRAE for a grant and received funding in March. Twenty-six grants have been awarded by ASHRAE to colleges and universities worldwide to promote HVAC education and encourage undergraduate students to pursue mechanical careers. The grants are used to design and construct projects.
The playground will be designed as a journey set in a playful, interactive environment, with each stop in the playground building on the knowledge gained from the previous stop.

Thus, the journey will begin with a psychrometrics test center, which essentially is an adiabatic test chamber

(water tank) where students can measure moist air properties such as dry bulb and wet bulb temperatures. Psychrometrics is one of the first main elements in understanding the air conditioning processes, but critical conditions are not much more than points on a chart when starting out in HVAC. Students can plot out “wet bulb temperature” or “humidity ratio” on a piece of paper, but get to see the big picture as they use the measuring equipment at the test chamber to record and compare moist air property data. Other devices, such as manometers for gas law tests, will be used for further fundamental experiments in this first area.

After learning about air properties, students are ready for the next leg of the playground adventure: learning about system components that correspond to the conditions and physical processes with which HVAC fundamentals begin. Students will be able to visit several stations where air conditioning devices can be disassembled and reassembled to show the characteristics and capabilities of particular devices linked to properties and processes learned in the previous part of the playground.

The last part of the journey through the playground is putting the processes and devices together from the first two areas of experiments and demonstrations to learn how full air handling systems are created and configured. There will be a cross-sectioned model of a vertical air handling unit that opens to display the order of system components. There are also plans drawn for an air handling system component set up with a water pump and functioning coils and fan to allow students to measure air conditions before and after the use of different components and processes in a working air system. In addition, another part of the lab will include local/room system mockups so that students can learn how local conditioned air supply and exhaust components are installed and maintained.

Once the basics are established for HVAC systems—processes, components, and systems put together—design fundamentals come into play in yet another area of the playground. Students will learn how systems are designed based on human statistics and related ASHRAE standard comfort and indoor air quality charts. Human simulation research experiments and equipment will further demonstrate fundamental relationships between people and indoor environments charted by standards taught in class.

The idea is that important lessons students learn are not only the operation and maintenance of building mechanical systems, but also the knowledge of what a healthy, well-maintained system looks like.

The playground is currently under construction. Srebric and Nawrocki are looking for both demonstration equipment donations and funding from sponsors. About 100 undergraduate students will participate in the lab each year, in addition to prospective high school students attending workshops and open houses and mechanical graduate students conducting research. In addition to funding from ASHRAE and the Architectural Engineering Department, the playground has also received a few pieces of equipment, coils and a VAV box, from Trane Northeast PA.

Please visit the HVAC Playground web site at www.engr.psu.edu/jsrebric/playground.html.

Questions about the playground or donations may be directed to Srebric at jsrebric@psu.edu.