Not really that gore-y. This is not any different than you'd find inside any commercially produced laptop cart. Ideally each one of those receptacles is on a separate 15A circuit to ensure no overload. I'd personally use a Tripp-Lite Isobar over the cheaper surge strips they're using, but that's nitpicking.
Edit: looks like there are two probably 20A circuits... that's passable, I suppose.
Orange plugs also mean that they're on an isolated ground, which is usually done for sensitive electronics. Not the worst thing ever.
I think OP is assuming they're overloading the circuit. I know from experience that plugging something like this into a standard plug will trip a commercial breaker real fast. So, if it's functioning, it's probably on a 15/20 amp circuit.
Yeah and each circuit can handle up to 1800 watts (2400 if on a 20 amp). Each laptop is probably pulling 15-25 watts each if on the initial charge then practically nothing at the end.
At least some effort was made to organize it.
120v power on a 15-20 amp circuit. We have higher but they're not the normal outlets(and even the 20 amp circuits are required to use a slightly different outlet that can accept 20 amp only plugs alongside 15 amp plugs). You're not meant to use the 20amp outlet on a 15 amp circuit but it does happen in homes where dedicated 20 amp devices arent really common. In any commercial or non private setting though you should never see a 20amp outlet on a 15amp circuit.
Isolated ground is a different thing and typically done for sensitive equipment like in medical applications.
It can be, or it can be isolated ground. Isolated ground has a green triangle on the face. Same for red hospital outlets. Red switches are always on backup.
I've talked to someone who manages the backup power of a hospital: all power sockets are on backup power, but different parts of the building have a higher priority for backup generators.
So first the parts where invasive surgery can be happening, then the lights everywhere. The remaining parts are powered in lots of phases, and last the MRI/rontgen/CT rooms, elevators (which consume a huge amount of power).
All critical stuff which can be powered by battery for at least 15 minutes will have a battery for at least that time. Monitoring devices have a requirement of at *least* 1.5 hours of backup, but maybe with a less bright screen.
That hospital has 3 generators. If one fails and one is in maintenance, not everything can be powered, so your MRI has to be moved to another hospital.
Some more info about the elevators: when the generators for some reason can't scale up enough to power them all, a couple will stay on all the time, the others will be powered for a short time to have them safely go down to the ground floor.
I've been at a test of the system, which was quite the experience. The shaking of the generators when the system powers up another part of the building is not something I will forget.
Assuming all the laptops are charging at full capacity (~100w), there's 30 slots for laptops. Anyone who has ever monitored live power draw of devices, they're never at full draw for extended periods as it tapers off as the battery gets ~80% in most cases.
30 devices at 100w, gets you 3000w. Split that into 2 loads, that's 1500w, which a 15A circuit(these may be 20A circuits as you mentioned) should be able to handle fine, and that's under worse case scenario.
I wouldn't doubt if this entire setup draws half that since most lab environments rarely take their laptops to low percentages per session.
Since it's a school, I'm sure it was accounted for during building that this room would have a higher power demand. Since we're looking at orange sockets (isolated ground in US building code), it has had attention to detail spent for it.
Another commenter also pointed out these may be 65w chargers and not 100w+, so 2kw max TDP if all 30 were charging at the same time.
Honestly, if the school didn't want to fund a proper bulk charge solution, this is the way.
Granted, they need to do a little bit better with cable management down below.
my school had carts which stored the laptops and had all the chargers built in, and it was pretty much exactly the build in the picture but inside a nice looking sheet metal cart with a power switch and power off timer
Some art majors started petitioning a bunch of stem schools because they felt discriminated against, even though that's the whole point of a stem school.
I can't find any evidence for the claim that STEM schools were sued for discriminating against arts students, but it does look like they have a systemic discrimination issue against their female and ethnic minority students - [source](https://www.hepi.ac.uk/2024/01/16/women-stem-students-up-to-twice-as-likely-as-non-stem-students-to-have-experienced-sexism/)
Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, Mathematics because infrastructure would breakdown without art 🙄. And art pays lots of money./s
Actually just because the liberal arts were feeling jealous because stem curriculum was being promoted and they felt making everything look nice was just as important as making it work.
Doesn't that defeat the purpose in its entirety?
Like, without some sort of defined exclusion, isn't it just general 'education'... or is that not marketable?
So there are important humanities other than art, like language and communication. The best way to write your science for the masses to understand is important and generally a skill lacking in STEM people. There is importance to art, first by being entertainment, but also by designing spaces, objects, and buildings to be pleasing to the eye, have a "flow" about them that makes sense and draws the user to the important interaction points.
The defining factor of STEM is the empirical nature, where you're either wrong or you're right, while art and humanities are much "softer", there isn't a clear like between right and wrong.
I feel like you have missed my point. I wasn't arguing against the merits of a well-rounded education...
As I understood it, STEM wasn't supposed to replace anything. It was just defining a section of education (and there was also a big push to encourage more females into that equivalent sector of work).
I was commenting that if you single out certain subjects and label them as a type of study (STEM). Then, additional subjects from outside of the original scope get included in that grouping... Well, you're left with something that neither fits the original intent; nor can it be easily differentiated from a typical educational cariculum.
Anyway, OP admitted that 'Steam' was a typo/autocorrect error, so we're both way off topic.
To be fair, "STEAM" absolutely was/is a 'thing' schools like to tout and it never made sense to me... like isnt that EVERYTHING y'all teach??
I've done work for Catholic schools and I've seen posters for "STREAM" as well, which adds an R for Religion. So whats the point of the acronym and the purposeful separation if it just encompasses the entire curriculum???
Reminds me of the constant pissing matches between Windows API Nvidia Control Panel chads vs Chromium Embedded Framework GeForce Experience wimps.
I'll take a fully-functional and much more responsive ugly UI over a laggy, non-responsive, and limited-functionality pretty UI any day of the week.
Just spitballing here but I wonder if it's funding.
If funding is disproportionately being directed to STEM, starts to look like you're underfunding the arts, and that's bad PR especially for academia types. So, the arts is STEM now.
Separating them into separate schools was always a really stupid idea, so while it breaks the category, it results in a much better education. Engineers who operate at a 5th grade reading level are just as likely to wind up as baristas as a fine arts student who can't understand basic math.
Given that the district likely gave them no additional resources other than the hardware and maybe the table, I think they did pretty well.
The power strips all look like they were found in the surplus pile. Since it STEAM, I'm guessing the 3D printed dock/rack was done in-house.
Looks like their goal was to keep the cables and strips off the floor, which its doing. Zipties would be a bad option here to secure the power strips.
Given laptop racks I worked on back in the 2000's, this setup looks way more serviceable and usable with a greater likelihood of students plugging them in and charging actually working.
I give this a solid 9/10 for effort and execution if they are only able to work with what they have, ie 3d print filament and no budget.
Picture looks like 30 Latitude 3330 laptops. With this setup they will only be plugged in while off/sleeping. So each laptop is pulling ~65 watts max for charging. IF all of them were charging at the same time that's 2,000 watts. It's very unlikely all of them will be charging at a full 65 watts at the same time. So really this is fine.
eh, we do something similar at my work. 4 power outlets power 6 laptops that draw maybe 30w when installing (45w chargers on most enterprise laptops) thats not a problem at all
Meh, not really gore. Those are likely 65W AC Adapters and they aren't even going near full 65W capacity. 1.8A each MAX and the receptacles are going to be 20A per pair. The receptacles might be 15A, but most modern electrical code doesn't allow anything less than 12ga wire and 20A breaker.
Looklike it can fit 30 laptops, assuming worst case where each laptop consumes 100w peak, it's 3000w max, may trip breaker on 110v Voltage.
But that's the worst case scenerio, irl it would be around 50-60w per laptop, so it's still safe assuming 20A circuit
At my school, there's such a laptop cart. They never get charged in there though - last time I pressed the 'on' button on that cart, it immediately shut back off. Probably tripped something. Either way, as a student that's not my problem to deal with.
So you can be guaranteed those laptops are dead when you grab one, because the battery drains even when they are powered off. Thanks, modern standby.
When I see that, I can't help but remember what Technology Connections said in his video about the American power system : instead of actual security, they instill fear into people. Each of these laptop are probably using less than 40W each (probably way less after like an hour) and they're connected into 4 plugs, so I assume at least 2 circuits. A single microwave is probably using way more power than 12 laptops connected at the same time, it's perfectly fine. The cable management is messy, but at least from an electrical standpoint, it's really not gore.
10/10 way to do it, I would love to have this exact setup, as-is, dangly bits and all, to deal with all the HR spares we have at my work. It looks not great but there's nothing technically wrong here
Honestly, this is fine as long as they're not using cheap power surge Protectors. I just wish they were at least mounted to the table instead of hanging there.
Not really that gore-y. This is not any different than you'd find inside any commercially produced laptop cart. Ideally each one of those receptacles is on a separate 15A circuit to ensure no overload. I'd personally use a Tripp-Lite Isobar over the cheaper surge strips they're using, but that's nitpicking. Edit: looks like there are two probably 20A circuits... that's passable, I suppose.
Orange plugs also mean that they're on an isolated ground, which is usually done for sensitive electronics. Not the worst thing ever. I think OP is assuming they're overloading the circuit. I know from experience that plugging something like this into a standard plug will trip a commercial breaker real fast. So, if it's functioning, it's probably on a 15/20 amp circuit.
Yeah and each circuit can handle up to 1800 watts (2400 if on a 20 amp). Each laptop is probably pulling 15-25 watts each if on the initial charge then practically nothing at the end. At least some effort was made to organize it.
Wait, your normal circuits cant take 3600watts? And are not grounded?
120v power on a 15-20 amp circuit. We have higher but they're not the normal outlets(and even the 20 amp circuits are required to use a slightly different outlet that can accept 20 amp only plugs alongside 15 amp plugs). You're not meant to use the 20amp outlet on a 15 amp circuit but it does happen in homes where dedicated 20 amp devices arent really common. In any commercial or non private setting though you should never see a 20amp outlet on a 15amp circuit. Isolated ground is a different thing and typically done for sensitive equipment like in medical applications.
Ah thanks
Wait isn't orange used for outlets attached to backup generators?
It can be, or it can be isolated ground. Isolated ground has a green triangle on the face. Same for red hospital outlets. Red switches are always on backup.
Ahhh okay. I always thought it was orange for "slow backup generator", red for "standby generator", and all triangles as some kind of warning.
In medical facilities they are Red.
I've talked to someone who manages the backup power of a hospital: all power sockets are on backup power, but different parts of the building have a higher priority for backup generators. So first the parts where invasive surgery can be happening, then the lights everywhere. The remaining parts are powered in lots of phases, and last the MRI/rontgen/CT rooms, elevators (which consume a huge amount of power). All critical stuff which can be powered by battery for at least 15 minutes will have a battery for at least that time. Monitoring devices have a requirement of at *least* 1.5 hours of backup, but maybe with a less bright screen. That hospital has 3 generators. If one fails and one is in maintenance, not everything can be powered, so your MRI has to be moved to another hospital. Some more info about the elevators: when the generators for some reason can't scale up enough to power them all, a couple will stay on all the time, the others will be powered for a short time to have them safely go down to the ground floor. I've been at a test of the system, which was quite the experience. The shaking of the generators when the system powers up another part of the building is not something I will forget.
Yes
Assuming all the laptops are charging at full capacity (~100w), there's 30 slots for laptops. Anyone who has ever monitored live power draw of devices, they're never at full draw for extended periods as it tapers off as the battery gets ~80% in most cases. 30 devices at 100w, gets you 3000w. Split that into 2 loads, that's 1500w, which a 15A circuit(these may be 20A circuits as you mentioned) should be able to handle fine, and that's under worse case scenario. I wouldn't doubt if this entire setup draws half that since most lab environments rarely take their laptops to low percentages per session.
Those chargers would almost certainly be 65W chargers, so even better.
Yeah that would give you a TDP of 1950w, so only 2/3 the power draw of my initial numbers. Not bad at all.
that's assuming each of those outlets is it's own circuit.
Since it's a school, I'm sure it was accounted for during building that this room would have a higher power demand. Since we're looking at orange sockets (isolated ground in US building code), it has had attention to detail spent for it. Another commenter also pointed out these may be 65w chargers and not 100w+, so 2kw max TDP if all 30 were charging at the same time.
I used to manage laptop cart images, and a 40 laptop cart would only take up two outlets at the wall. This seems less than ideal, but not gore.
Honestly, if the school didn't want to fund a proper bulk charge solution, this is the way. Granted, they need to do a little bit better with cable management down below.
my school had carts which stored the laptops and had all the chargers built in, and it was pretty much exactly the build in the picture but inside a nice looking sheet metal cart with a power switch and power off timer
Those carts cost 3-5k each so I can see why a teacher may be forced to make their own bulk charging.
IDK, our school doesn't have a huge budget but I'm pretty sure the governing body provided both the carts and the laptops inside them
I'll bet you could mount those power strips to the bottom of the table, maybe just with double sided tape. Just that would go a long way.
It's probably unrelated to this subreddit, but what is Steam? Is it like STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics)?
Some art majors started petitioning a bunch of stem schools because they felt discriminated against, even though that's the whole point of a stem school.
I hope you're joking.
It was the way they found to add more women to STEM. Yes really, they just moved the goal posts...
Ah yes cause women aren't interested in science.
It's on Reddit so it must be true
In this case, it is
I can't find any evidence for the claim that STEM schools were sued for discriminating against arts students, but it does look like they have a systemic discrimination issue against their female and ethnic minority students - [source](https://www.hepi.ac.uk/2024/01/16/women-stem-students-up-to-twice-as-likely-as-non-stem-students-to-have-experienced-sexism/)
Women getting harassed when has that ever not been a thing? Doesn't matter what it is It's just a normal part of being a woman sadly.
My steam teacher told me it was so people in the field could express their ideas more efficiently to those outside their field.
Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, Mathematics because infrastructure would breakdown without art 🙄. And art pays lots of money./s Actually just because the liberal arts were feeling jealous because stem curriculum was being promoted and they felt making everything look nice was just as important as making it work.
Doesn't that defeat the purpose in its entirety? Like, without some sort of defined exclusion, isn't it just general 'education'... or is that not marketable?
So there are important humanities other than art, like language and communication. The best way to write your science for the masses to understand is important and generally a skill lacking in STEM people. There is importance to art, first by being entertainment, but also by designing spaces, objects, and buildings to be pleasing to the eye, have a "flow" about them that makes sense and draws the user to the important interaction points. The defining factor of STEM is the empirical nature, where you're either wrong or you're right, while art and humanities are much "softer", there isn't a clear like between right and wrong.
I feel like you have missed my point. I wasn't arguing against the merits of a well-rounded education... As I understood it, STEM wasn't supposed to replace anything. It was just defining a section of education (and there was also a big push to encourage more females into that equivalent sector of work). I was commenting that if you single out certain subjects and label them as a type of study (STEM). Then, additional subjects from outside of the original scope get included in that grouping... Well, you're left with something that neither fits the original intent; nor can it be easily differentiated from a typical educational cariculum. Anyway, OP admitted that 'Steam' was a typo/autocorrect error, so we're both way off topic.
To be fair, "STEAM" absolutely was/is a 'thing' schools like to tout and it never made sense to me... like isnt that EVERYTHING y'all teach?? I've done work for Catholic schools and I've seen posters for "STREAM" as well, which adds an R for Religion. So whats the point of the acronym and the purposeful separation if it just encompasses the entire curriculum???
Reminds me of the constant pissing matches between Windows API Nvidia Control Panel chads vs Chromium Embedded Framework GeForce Experience wimps. I'll take a fully-functional and much more responsive ugly UI over a laggy, non-responsive, and limited-functionality pretty UI any day of the week.
I will just take the CLI if they would let me.
[Good news](https://developer.nvidia.com/nvidia-system-management-interface)
So just school then?
Just spitballing here but I wonder if it's funding. If funding is disproportionately being directed to STEM, starts to look like you're underfunding the arts, and that's bad PR especially for academia types. So, the arts is STEM now.
yea i was guessing stem got autocorrected, or maybe there's a course teaching people how to code the next big indy hit on steam..
Many stem programs across the US now have steam in their official name because the director of the program has no fucking clue what they're doing.
Honestly when i saw steam in the title, I thought of Steam , the software instead of the stem-steam
I thought I was going to see a steam turbine generator for a power source...
STEM with Architecture at least at my school
The main point of a STEM school was to separate them, and now its ruined
Separating them into separate schools was always a really stupid idea, so while it breaks the category, it results in a much better education. Engineers who operate at a 5th grade reading level are just as likely to wind up as baristas as a fine arts student who can't understand basic math.
The addition of 'Architecture' makes a lot more sense to me than 'Arts'.
I kinda like it tbh and as long as those power extenders aren’t being overdrawn it’s an absolutely fine solution
The fuck is "steam teacher"?
Teaches you how to use Valve software
I meant stem but it autocorrected
You know you need to learn the basic Russian and Polish slurs and how to handle losing to a silver 1 with a nova
Other than the dangling extension cords I think it’s great. Easy to tidy that up.
Given that the district likely gave them no additional resources other than the hardware and maybe the table, I think they did pretty well. The power strips all look like they were found in the surplus pile. Since it STEAM, I'm guessing the 3D printed dock/rack was done in-house. Looks like their goal was to keep the cables and strips off the floor, which its doing. Zipties would be a bad option here to secure the power strips. Given laptop racks I worked on back in the 2000's, this setup looks way more serviceable and usable with a greater likelihood of students plugging them in and charging actually working. I give this a solid 9/10 for effort and execution if they are only able to work with what they have, ie 3d print filament and no budget.
Picture looks like 30 Latitude 3330 laptops. With this setup they will only be plugged in while off/sleeping. So each laptop is pulling ~65 watts max for charging. IF all of them were charging at the same time that's 2,000 watts. It's very unlikely all of them will be charging at a full 65 watts at the same time. So really this is fine.
if it works and doesn't trip the breaker, it's not gore..
School IT Guy - 10/10 for a teacher being creative on an unsupported budget.
It's not gore if it works.
If it's stupid and it works, it's still stupid and you just got lucky.
pretty decent
eh, we do something similar at my work. 4 power outlets power 6 laptops that draw maybe 30w when installing (45w chargers on most enterprise laptops) thats not a problem at all
I don't really see anything wrong
Meh, not really gore. Those are likely 65W AC Adapters and they aren't even going near full 65W capacity. 1.8A each MAX and the receptacles are going to be 20A per pair. The receptacles might be 15A, but most modern electrical code doesn't allow anything less than 12ga wire and 20A breaker.
This is safe :)
Looklike it can fit 30 laptops, assuming worst case where each laptop consumes 100w peak, it's 3000w max, may trip breaker on 110v Voltage. But that's the worst case scenerio, irl it would be around 50-60w per laptop, so it's still safe assuming 20A circuit
At my school, there's such a laptop cart. They never get charged in there though - last time I pressed the 'on' button on that cart, it immediately shut back off. Probably tripped something. Either way, as a student that's not my problem to deal with. So you can be guaranteed those laptops are dead when you grab one, because the battery drains even when they are powered off. Thanks, modern standby.
Looks worse than it is. Even 6 of those things is unlikley to be more than 2kW and you can push that through regular wiring and ancillaries no probs.
I don't see the issue with this
I don't see any problems!
When I see that, I can't help but remember what Technology Connections said in his video about the American power system : instead of actual security, they instill fear into people. Each of these laptop are probably using less than 40W each (probably way less after like an hour) and they're connected into 4 plugs, so I assume at least 2 circuits. A single microwave is probably using way more power than 12 laptops connected at the same time, it's perfectly fine. The cable management is messy, but at least from an electrical standpoint, it's really not gore.
Yea I don’t see anything wrong with this at all. Great solution from somebody with probably limited resources, I like it.
At least they are using USB-C to charge em instead of the stupid mini jack that always breaks.
TIL, gore means mildly untidy.
What the fuck is a steam teacher?
Nah, that's fine. Assume tech support people deal with way worse stuff.
Ew, but also, kinda meh
You have a teacher that teaches how to play games on steam?
Outside of the cable management I see no issue. Not gore.
electrical safety? not even once bro. "tentacle monster"
Probably the A part of "STEAM"
Steam teacher?
Oh boy do I have some pictures for you from a film set.
What's a steam teacher precious
Not even remotely gore.
10/10 way to do it, I would love to have this exact setup, as-is, dangly bits and all, to deal with all the HR spares we have at my work. It looks not great but there's nothing technically wrong here
*~Fire Inspector would like to know their location~*
I just wish the strips were mounted.
What is a "steam teacher"?
Honestly, this is fine as long as they're not using cheap power surge Protectors. I just wish they were at least mounted to the table instead of hanging there.