Junior high school students in the United States serve as a weapon for the government: changing a font saves money.
with a drop of ink in a pen or on a keyboard, you can write down a "e", the most common alphabet in the English dictionary. Is it easy? Imagine how many thousands of e will be played on thousands of forms. Then, how much ink do I need to do? Many people may have never thought about it, but Suvir Mirchandani, 14, a junior high school student at Pittsburgh, was naturally thinking about the problem when he tried to save money.
junior high school students in the United States serve as a tool for the government: saving a font can save
all this started at a science fair. As a newly born Dorseyville freshman in grade six, Suvir found that he got much more information than his primary school. Suvir is interested in the application of Computer Science in sustainable development, so he decided to find a way to minimize the daily use of paper and ink.
the use of recycled paper and double-sided printing to reduce the use of paper has been a good way to save money and save resources, but few people are concerned about how much ink is used in the history and mathematics lecture notes.
Suvir smiled and said, "the price of ink is even more expensive than French perfume."
junior high school students in the United States serve as a tool for the government: change the font to save money
he is right. Chanel NO.5 perfume costs US $38 an ounce, while equivalent HP printer ink costs US $75. So Suvir decided to focus his research on reducing the use of these expensive liquids.
by collecting random samples of handouts, Suvir will focus on the most commonly used letters (E, t, a, O, R).
first, he statistics the occurrence frequency of each letter in the four fonts of Garamond/Times New Roman/Century Gothic/Comic Sans. Then the amount of ink used for each letter is calculated through the commercial tool APFill ink coverage software. Then he amplified and printed the letters and compared them with the weight laid on the cardboard to confirm his research results. Each letter is tested three times, and the ink usage of each font is shown in the chart.
American junior high school student for government: change a font to save money
through this study, Suvir found that if a fine Garamond was used, his campus could reduce the use of 24% of the ink, that is, it could save $21000 a year.
his teacher encouraged him to publish research on the new researchers' Journal (JEI), which was founded by the Harvard graduate group in 2011 to provide a communication platform for the study of junior high school students. It has the same status as other Harvard academic journals, and each submitted research will be evaluated by Harvard graduate students and teachers. Sarah Fankhauser, one of the founders of
JEI magazine, said that since they received nearly 200 submissions in 2011, Suvir's research has been particularly outstanding.
"we were deeply touched. We can see that Suvir's research is very practical for the real society. "
Fankhauser says that Suvir's research is clear, concise and thoughtful. JEI asked him in his comments: "how much can this save?"
in order to get the answer, JEI challenged Suvir to apply his research project to a larger scope: the federal government. The federal government has to spend $1 billion 800 million a year on printing, which is much more challenging than scientific research in schools.
Suvir responded to the test. He printed 5 samples from the documents provided by the government's printing office website and then came to the same result - a font saving.
will the US government accept this change?
costs $467 million per year according to the federal agency's statistics, and Suvir calculates that if the federal government completely uses the Garamond font, it can save $136 million a year. If state governments join the ranks, they can save 234 million extra.
American junior high school students for government: changing a font to save money
Gary Somerset, the media and public relations executive of the federal printing office, thinks that the study of Suvir is "unusual". But he is vague about whether the printing office will change the font, calling the printing office's goal of sustainable development a paperless one.
"in 1994, the Federal Register and the Congressional records printed 20000 pieces of information every day. 20 years passed, and now only about 2500 copies are printed every day.
Somerset said, more importantly, the Congressional registry now only uses recycled paper, and the federal printing office has been insisting on it for five or six years.
the federal government launched an initiative called "Printwise" to reduce the use of ink. The initiative was organized by the General Services Department to allow government offices to learn how to use font default by Times New Roman, Garamond and Century Gothic to reduce print expenditures. According to Dan Cruz, the general information officer, they hope that such initiatives will save the federal government $30 million a year.
Suvir appreciated the efforts of the government, but he felt that his research could have a greater impact nationwide.
he said: "people will also print at home, and they can also save money."
often hope
14 years old, and Suvir realizes how difficult it is to make a project be implemented - "I find it hard to change people's way of doing it. This is the hardest part. "
but he still harbors hope: "I really want to see some changes, and I will make every effort to make changes happen."
in the next few decades, even the world's thorny political problems and technological problems will appear as young men and women like Suvir.
the research paper of Suvir mentioned in the "Suvir the" font, save money
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