Wind Turbine Blog

Background: 

Wind turbines are used to convert energy from the wind into mechanical energy, and then into electrical energy. The wind turns the repellers which creates mechanical energy. This becomes the input for a generator. This process is exemplified through rotating the magnets around the coils of wire. This process causes a change in the magnetic field. This induces a voltage in the wire which creates electrical current. 

Materials:

-PVC pipes

-cardboard 

-coil of wire

-3 small round wooden pieces

-wooden rods

-magnets

-wooden box cutout.

Uses:

The PVC pipes were used as the body of our turbine, and also as the base of our turbine. Additionally, we used smaller pipes to put the actual generator inside. We made the repellers out of cardboard, and hot glued them to the rest of our turbine, to allow them to spin correctly. Inside the PVC pipe, we kept the generator. This generator was made with 2 small round wooden pieces. Glued to these, were 4 magnets. The north side of two of the magnets was facing out, while the south side of the other two was facing out. This allowed the generator to function. We attached this to a long narrow wooden pole, and stuck it out one of the sides of the PVC pipe through drilling a hole. This was difficult, because we had to use a wooden box cutout to make a small circle, so that the wooden rod would not move around too much. We got coils of wire and hot glued them to the sides of the PVC pipe to induce voltage. We used a small wooden circle to attach the the outside of the wooden rod, so we could glue the repellers onto it, and our turbine could function. 

Results/discussion:

Well, despite the efforts from the Wyatt, Carson, Will trio, our results were slightly on the side of disastrous. Unfortunately, we only generated .1 volts of power, and did not have time to improve this. However, this was caused because of our repellers. They were very weak, had hardly no support, and barely even moved. Everything else on our turbine was perfectly functioning. This was our first and last try therefore the repellers are the only thing that I can advise working on.