Environment, Energy & Compute · Capstone brief

ENV-10 · Student compute budget

Set a project compute budget; log actual usage; include it in the final memo.

The question

Set a project compute budget; log actual usage; include it in the final memo.

Sources / materials

Pre-declared compute budget (API dollars, GPU hours, or equivalent). Usage log template. Intensity assumptions from public sources (EIA context allowed — — https://www.eia.gov/) when converting to energy/carbon — labeled as estimates.

Expected failure modes

Budget set after overspending. Fake logs. Ignoring that “free tier” still has a footprint. Final memo with no usage section.

Done looks like

Budget sheet dated before work; usage log; variance explanation; footprint section in the final memo; what was not run because of the budget.

Five C's

CT: budget as method. CR: live logging. CO: peer audits the log against artifacts. CM: memo footprint section. CZ: shared classroom API budget / grid.

Mentor role

Teacher audits log honesty once mid-project. School-supervised.

Rubric calibration

R1: one project, one budget. R2: log contemporaneous. R3: planned vs actual. R4: cuts recorded. R5: memo includes footprint. R6: refuses free-tier invisibility.

Two ways this goes wrong

(a) Reconstructed log on Sunday night. (b) Beautiful analysis with infinite silent compute.

Credit lane fit

Lane A immediately. No verified credit claim.