Turbine Blog

When told that we had to build a Wind Turbine, I was not happy. With only a week until exams and final work having to be turned in. I did not have time to worry about building a machine. Well, thanks to google and previously taught concepts, I was able to create a very successful wind turbine.

I knew that in order to get the turbine to display voltage, the amount of coils was crucial. In our machine, each coil had 200 turns, making 800 turns in all. This made the turbine spin very fast, as seen in the video below. The coils make a voltage and when the magnets are close to the coils, the domains line up.

The materials needed to make the turbine were:
water bottle
coil wires
disk magnets
square dowel
round dowel
LED
fender washer
screws
wood for the platform
glue

 

 

 

The water bottle was used to make the turbine spin and cause a voltage. In order for the bottle to form this design, we had to cut the bottle in half, cut out a template for the bottom and top of the battle. When this was done, we plunged a hole through the cardboard with a sharpened piece of a round dowel. This round dowel went from the top of the machine to the bottom. this caused the bottle to spin easily and not fall off of the frame. We made 4 coils, each of which had 200 turns. After these were glued down to a piece of cardboard, we used the fender washers and disk magnets to align with the coils to induce the voltage. To do this, we made sure that the poles of the magnets were all facing the same way. When we attached the loose ends of the coils to a LED, we saw that we had successfully created voltage.

 

In this project, I learned that in order to induce the voltage, we had to make more turns of wire. When the turbine was able to spin faster, the possibilities of the turbine being able to light a light are greater. Sadly, ours did not. I really enjoyed this project. I would do it again in a heart beat!!