About Me
2008-02-26 by Rob
My name is Rob Steves. I live in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. I’m an electrical and mechanical engineer by trade. I’ve been pondering the issue of global climate change for a long time. It’s easy to feel like the situation is hopeless. After all, what can any one individual do? If I reduce my impact to zero, it will still not have any significant effect on a global scale. Clearly many must act together to make a difference. I created this website with the hope of helping to inform and inspire many people.
There are so many simple things people can do to reduce their impact and save money if only they know what to do. The hardest part is getting the word out. If you influence just one other person to reduce their impact then you have doubled any effect that you might have alone. If they in turn influence someone else… you get the idea.
If you’d like to contact me privately, you may do so by email at rob (at) iwilltry.org.
I work for National Council of Teacher of Mathematics. I created a webquest for a highschool project last year (http://www.nctm.org/resources/content.aspx?id=22453), and I am giving a presentation on solar cookers at a conference. I was hoping to use an image in my powerpoint from you page on solar cookers. Will you please give me permission to do so? I am also willing to add more of your information into the webquest itself, and you are more than welcome to use my webquest as a teaching tool, if you’d like.
Sarah
Hi Sarah,
You are welcome to use any images or information from this site for creating teaching tools. Thanks for asking.
Dear Rob Steves,
Contents of your webpages are very useful and practical. I am impressed.
My name is Natthayouth and I am from Thailand. I am an electrical engineer and also a part-time lecturer. Currently, I am trying to be an author of Science and Technology Knowledge Services website, http://www.stks.or.th/blog. I would like to use (translate and re-write) some of the contents on your “Adjust your freezer thermostat” for a Thai article on Energy Saving Tips.
Thailand is a very hot country where we have all year round daytime temperature average of 30-35 degree C. Adjusting a correct freezer thermostat will help Thailand keeping wasted energy to minimum.
I would like to obtain your permission to do that, please. Thank you very much in advance for your approval.
Yours sincerely,
Natthayouth
Hi Natthayouth, you have my permission to translate and use whatever parts of the article you like. Thanks for asking. -Rob
I just working on rebuilding my solar panels I made some years back and decided to see if anyone else showed up using coraplast as a collector medium. I see you been playing for some time too. I have been using the exact same method in one of my projects. The split ABS pipe. I have UV degregation with mine right now but they lasted about 17 years. I started with water but soon went to air only. I run a micro to control things and have seen it kick in as early as feb without any snow cleaning or maintenance. I don’t normally partake in web interface stuff but your work caught my eye. I am trying too….. haha Been playing for many years now. Solar (most types), Geo, Magnets, and most recently wood gas. Glad to see someone else thinks the same way.
I’m so pleased that I found your website. We bought 2 elec. oil heaters to heat our small home. I guess there not as eco friendly as straight electric, what are your thoughts on this. Thanks, Susan
hi rob.
great blog. i haven’t really had time to look through it too much yet, so there is a good chance you’ve already addressed my issue.
CFL bulbs are excellent for summer use because they give off very little heat compared to incandescents. in the winter, however, it seems to me that we should go back to the incandescents because of the fact that they are, in effect, little electric space heaters spread throughout the house. they are used, for the most part, in the earliest and latest parts of the day when electricity is in greater supply/less demand. the whole business of load shifting within the electrical generation industry, with time-of-use rates &c. seems to support my idea, but i’m anything but an expert. i would love to hear your opinion.
also, i notice that someone asked in an earlier comment whether there is an efficiency difference between 110v and 220v electric heaters. i’ve heard this many times over the years, but have never found anyone who could say, definitively, whether it is true or false. if you could direct me to an article that would explain, i’d be grateful!
sincerely,
grant
bishop’s mills (just south of our nation’s capital)
ontario
Hi Rob,
I have some power Solar Tracker Driver to sell you.
For your powerful Solar Tracker. Thank you!
Sincerely,
Tiger
Hey Rob!
For a science fair experiment I want to use (and change around a little bit) the data tables from:
“http://www.iwilltry.org/b/how-to-measure-the-drag-coefficient-of-your-car/”
I’ll put your name in my acknowledgments section and give a reason why.
-Thank you very much, Antor