Hi everyone,
For this assignment, I decided to examine the radiator heater in my dorm room. Given its appearance and the caution tag, “HOT,” many people would be right to assume that this device is some sort of heating system. The knob suggests turning (affordances), and the numbers indicate the increments of heating, with higher numbers alluding to higher temperatures (mapping).
There is a lot of information about different kinds of radiators and heaters online, so determining the power draw of this particular unit was difficult. As one example, according to this article, oil-filled heaters have low energy settings of 700-800 watts and can use as much as 1,500 watts, like conventional electric space heaters.
I also was not too sure about the material and coating/finish of this type of radiator heater. From my own experience, it takes a while for the heater to warm up the room, and it can grow loud and noisy (clanking and banging sounds). Additionally, because the unit grows hot to touch, I take caution in what furniture items are around the heater.
Very interesting product to choose with an appropriate analysis of the interfaces. That type of radiator is likely steam, which is a complicated energy calculation given how steam is generated and distributed throughout campus … glad you were able to find a few reasonable guesses there. I’m interested to see that you find the knob intuitive … I know many who find it quite difficult to know if the higher numbers do indeed correlate to warmer temperatures.