Testing the Hypothesis, Part 1

Who: Student's and faculty on UF campus walking to and from class and other on campus activities on a regular basis getting sweaty and gross.

What: Since Florida is so hot they get sweaty and smelly on their way to class and then have to sit either in class or wherever they were going on campus and smell bad and feel gross and dirty.

Why: Florida is a naturally hot and humid state. The bus system is extensive and takes student's all over campus, however, sometimes busses don't get close enough to the destination that the walk from the bus stop to their final destination doesn't make them sweaty anyway. Also some people enjoy walking and seeing the beautiful campus that UF has but don't like how gross they get.

My hypothesis is that if I were to introduce the idea of installing solar powered fans across campus to already existing light posts and stop lights that people would enjoy their walks to and from class more as well as not being as sweaty and smelly when they get there. If people aren't so hot when they get inside, the air conditioning wouldn't have to be set so incredibly low in all the buildings on campus. This would benefit the university in the long run as well as making students and faculty's time on campus better.

I interviewed 3 college students who I found walking through Turlington on a hot afternoon as well as one of my professors and one of my friends who lives in a far away off campus apartment. The general consensus from everyone was that having fans around campus that would cool them down and possibly mist them a little would be a luxury. They thought it would make a marginal difference in how much they like walking and how much they do it. The student's I interviewed agreed that it would be somewhat excessive however they if UF were to do it they would love it. I asked if they thought having solar panels on top would make it them uglier and deter from the beauty of UF's campus and while one of them thought it would certainly make the campus not as pretty, the other two thought that the solar panels would show that UF cares about the environment and it wouldn't deter from campus as a whole. The professor thought they were a good idea as he bikes to his classes. He does this because he thinks biking is great exercise and it's good for the environment. The issue is that he like to dress presentably for his classes and this combined with the heat and the exercise of biking makes him very sweaty when he finally arrives. The last interviewee who lives far away would love this solution as she has to bus into campus and then walk a far walk to her class since there's only 1 route that goes to campus and it goes to the hub. She hate's that she gets so gross by the time she gets to class but doesn't want to move apartments because this one is in her budget because it's farther from campus. There was an agreement across all of  the interviews that the reason for this was unavoidable since it's just how the state of Florida is. They knew that since this is the natural climate they shouldn't be surprise that this is how it is but it doesn't make it less annoying.

I found through my interviews that as I expected there was a unanimous agreement that this would be a good addition to campus. Since people like to walk or have to walk all the time anyway, making it more enjoyable would be a great benefit to everyone. This seems like an opportunity that would benefit a lot of people and would actually go over well in a prototypical scenario.