High School Fire Drills

Most Hated Lifesaver of All Time This product awakens disgruntled students at untimely hours across campuses and schools across the nation. There should be one of these in each and every building in America. It is so necessary that everyone have one that there are laws in all 50 states requiring that one of these be installed and tested regularly. Yes, I am talking about the fire alarm. There are over 132,000 public and private K-12 schools and over 2,600 universities across the nation (U.S. Department of Education). It is highly likely that as a kid, you were subject to random fire drills during the school day usually about once a month. These drills came as a surprise every time but were a break from the boring day of elementary schooling. However, after being in college for just over 4 months, it has become the bane of my existence. But don’t tell me you wouldn’t be peeved if you found out that your 8 AM lecture was

The first designs included heat detectors and the ionization chamber was not mass produced until the 1970’s and cost around $125 with a few hundred thousand sold per year. However, a major concern that smoke detectors and fire alarms fail to address is electrical fires that occur within the walls of buildings. New developments in the 21st century use piezoelectric transducers to detect the sound of drywall expanding when exposed to rapid heating. This will be especially helpful when incorporated into buildings with extensive electrical systems as they have a higher risk of electrical fires. If I were a designer of fire alarms, I would design a device that had a piezoelectric transducer that was capable of detecting the slight difference in sound between a rapidly heated wall versus a normal wall. This would bring a sense of security to the customer that extended farther than just the inside of the building, but rather inside the walls as