Electropolis
An interactive exhibit exploring the technology and history of the urban electrical grid
Member of exhibit development team
Coordinator of prototyping and formative evaluation
Script writer for a read-aloud explainer on the grid for young visitors:
The Biggest Machine in the World
What is the Electrical grid?
Do you know what powers your computer and TV? What about your lights, your fridge, and your microwave? Electricity does, right? But where does your electricity come from?
Electricity comes to most homes from far away. But if you walk outside your home and look up, you can see how it travels: through wires. Electricity hitches a ride along the high wires that stretch and swoop down one street—to the next street—and the next. On some streets, the electricity travels through underground wires.
The wires on your street are just one tiny part of a gigantic network of wires. All of the wires on all of the streets across all of this country are part of one big machine. Together, those wires could wrap around our earth 108 times.
This machine is called the electrical grid, and it is the biggest machine in the world.
How does the grid work?
Hidden somewhere inside your home, there is a special box. If you open it up, you can see rows and rows of switches. They look like light switches, but they are much more powerful. The switches in your circuit box hook up to the wires on your street.
All of the homes in your neighborhood have circuit boxes, and all of the circuit boxes hook up to the wires in your neighborhood. All of the wires in your neighborhood hook up to even bigger wires. The bigger wires hook up to a power plant, where electricity is made.
Your electricity travels all the way from the electric power plant, through the big wires, through the wires on your street, and down into your circuit box, where you can switch your electricity on and off.
How did the grid begin?
What do you know about Thomas Edison? Most people know that he invented the light bulb. But he also created the very first electrical grid. His network of wires was much smaller than ours today, but it lit up a whole neighborhood in New York City.
But Chicago was the first real electric city. That’s because one hundred years ago, electricity was only given to very rich people. Chicago was the first city to hook up everyone’s home to the grid.
Electricity has changed people’s homes so much that now it’s hard for us to imagine how we would live without it. What would be different in your life?
How will the grid change?
Every day, new homes and stores hook up to the grid. Every day, the grid works harder to keep up with all the electricity we need. The grid is an amazing machine, but it is getting older. When things get older, sometimes they need changes or upgrades to keep working.
Soon, the grid will need to get smart. Like a smartphone, the smart grid will be able to store information and send messages. If your home needs more electricity than usual, the smart grid will sense that. Then it will ask the power plant to send more.
In the future, the grid will work more like the Internet.