February 21st:

• Attempted to assemble the complete circuit system together.

The circuit did not operate as it was supposed to do.

February 23:

• Cut out the wood pieces and PVC pipe for the turbine fans.
• Assembled a few turbine fans together.

February 25th:

• Completed assembling all six turbine fans.
• Drew and cut out two identical hexagons to hold all the fans in place.
• Used wood glue and nail gun to attach the turbine fans to identical hexagons.

May 3rd:

In school:

• Completed assembling all parts of the wind turbine.
• Soldered the USB type A port.
• Tested how much wind would be needed for the turbine to spin.
• Sawed the dwell piece that is appropriate for the dwell piece.
• Drill pressed a hole in the turbine cylinder stick.

Outside of school:

• 3D modelled the sleeve and base of the wind turbine.

 

May 7th :

• Completed final product.
• Fixed the circuit and re-soldered it.
• attached the ball bearing piece to the  turbine.
• super glued the 3D printed base and reinforced it with two more extra wood bases.
• Tested out our final product.

Feedbacks/Things we could have done better:

• The central dwell was way too long, making the whole machine unstable against strong wind. We either could have shortened the dwell and the 3D printed sleeve, or made the sleeve and base stronger with a different material, although that might have been too time consuming.
• The fan blades may also be inproved, it could have been lighter so weaker or less wind can generate the same amount or more electrcity. On top of that, the blades could have also been bigger, making it catch more wind and more efficient.

Improvments/Changes to Prototype:

• While making the blades, we decided that it was a better idea to attach the wodden bars to the side of the cut pvc pipes instead of the middle. This helped the blades catch more wind, making it more efficients. Doing this makes the turbine only able to spin in one direction and not the other; however, we do not need the function for it to spin in two directions.
• The centre part of the turbine was also different from our prototype design. The initial design was to use a circular piece to hold all the blades together. What we quickly realized was that using two pieces of hexagon shaped pieces to hamburger the blades into place is way more stable than our inital design. This way would also help us know where to put the blades better as the math is way simpler.
• Our inital plan was to directly attach the dynamo to the central dwell. This designs main problem is that it is extremely hard to position the dynamo in the centre of the dwell and well balanced, and faliure to do this would result in the dynamo bending. If we attached a base to hold it in place straight away, it would cause too much friction and cause the turbine to be less efficient. Our solution to that was to attach the dynamo to a dwell which was connected to a ball bearing that was connected to a 3D printed sleeve and base.
• Even on top of that, we had to make changes since the sleeve was not able to fit the ball bearing inside. Due to time restrictions, our only solution was to force the ball bearing in, cracking the 3D printed sleeve. Our solution to that was to tie it up with zip ties, rubber bands and a bit of super glue.
• The 3D printed base was not heavy enough nor wide enough to hold the device in place against strong wind, meaning the whole thing would be blown away. We decided that we had to add something heavy to hold it down and wide for it to hold onto the ground. What we decided at last was to make add two pieces of wood at the bottom to hold it down. One 15x15cm and the second one 18x18cm
• The last problem we faced was that—since the 3D printed case was cracked—there was a huge gap between the dynamo and the sleeve. This caused the dynamo to spin along with the turbine, thus tangling and breaking the wires connected to the battery. Our first solution was to use some type of glue to glue it in place, but we quickly came to realized that the gap was too big for glue to fill, and that glue may seep pass the dynamo and hold in place the parts that are supposed to be spining instead. Our final solution was to use super-glue-covered popsicle sticks that filled the gap between the dynamo and the sleeve, which was a double solution as the popsicles stablizes the dynamo and the glue holds it in place. Some parts of the stick were sticking out so we had to cut it off for the base to be flat and stable.

Will’s VAWT wind powered generator will be able to charge a battery in the battery pack while the battery pack is connected to the diode which is connected to the circuit board with the USB cable plug. My solar panels may be able to be connected to the same battery pack, but powering different batteries. This way, all four of the batteries would be able to have power and power the circuit board that is charging the phone. Another option would be for Will’s VAWT and my solar panels power two different battery packs which powers two different circuits, each generating 3 volts. But the problem would be to somehow connect the two circuits and then charge the phone as the phone only allows one cable to be plugged in.

This unit in science, we did the “save the penguin” project. This project is about designing a thing that can prevent heat loss. To test the project, every group will measure the mass of an ice cube, and put it in there design, after that, all the groups will put their design under a heat lamp, and wait. The group which lost the least mass, wins.

One thing I’m proud of when I did this project is when we thought of the simple idea where you just put wrappings around the whole ice cube, which worked, by the way. The idea is very simple, you just wrap mylar and stuff around it.

A new skill I learned in this project which I never used before is using the hot glue gun. At first, it was hard to handle the hot glue gun, but then, slowly, I began to know how to work the gun. This is a warning, never try to touch the hot glue, unless it’s dry, it really burns.

A hard thing about this project is how to put the whole thing together. For example, you glue the mylar together, five minutes later, it falls apart.

All in all, I really enjoyed this project.