The heat in the summer months can often be unbearable and, in the case of puppies, potentially fatal.  It is this seemingly simple problem of cooling dogs that is the basis of my design project.  The requirements were that the house needed to be safe for all dogs under all circumstances, durable, easy to operate, operable year round, and that it actually cools (or feels cooler for) the dog.

Many concepts were roughed out which met these requirements.  Concepts included the use of evaporative cooling (blowing air over a material which was moist), air conditioning methods (modifying an air conditioner or small refrigerator), passive cooling (cooling a metal plate with ice), thermal conduction (circulating cold water through piping under the floor of the house), electrical methods (using wires of different conductivities to draw heat away from the inside of the house).

While some of the other designs may have been more effective at cooling, my final design employed a sort of “heat capacitor.”  It consists of a large drawer which can be filled with ice or cold water which is placed under an aluminum pad.  Once in place, the ice touches the pad, which quickly cools.  The coolness is then slowly dissipated by a layer of acrylic which acts as a buffer to slow the rate of heat transfer.  This method was most favorable due to its inherent simplicity and safety which was determined to be more important than cooling for this scenario.

While the doghouse is not a steady 70 degrees in all conditions, the design does create the feeling of coolness for the dogs.  In the case of puppies, anything that can be used to take the edge of from the midday temperatures during a summer heat wave will dramatically increase their chances of survival.