wind turbinne

Background

In this unit we talked about Electromagnetic induction, which is the basic principle behind our working wind turbine. Electromagnetic induction occurs when a magnet is moved through or over a coil of wire. This movement changes the magnetic field of the loop of wire, which, in turn, induces a current. We applied electromagnetic induction to credit cards, stop lights, metal detectors, and even electric guitars. It’s amazing how something as simple as the movement of magnets through or over coils of wire helps power many aspects of our lives. Knowing how Electromagnetic Induction works allowed us to formulate and plan the most effective set-up of our wind turbine

Materials/ Methods

-Materials: wood base

-3 dowels rods (2 square, 1 circular)

-1 philips head skrew

-1 fish eye hook

-1 plastic bottle

-16 magnets

-4 washers

-cardboard

-We began with drawing a circle on the wooden base board. The circle is important to do as your first step because it shows how wide the structure will be. We then drilled the screw into the center of the circle ( not completely in).

-Next we built the structure that we would be holding the turbine. We glued two square dowel rods on either side of the circle and then glued another piece of the dowel rode connecting the two pieces. Before you attache the top dowel rod you must drill a small hole into the very center of the rod and then screw in the fish eye hook.

-After we did that we printed out the wind turbine stencil and cut out cardboard that fit the stencil perfectly.

-We then cut the top and bottom off of a liter bottle and glued the ends to the cardboard, and cut off the excess plastic.

-We then sharpened the end of the dowel rod and poked it through the water bottle piece.

-After that we build the magnet base. In ordeer to build it all you have to do is cut out two circles that are the same size, glue four washers in opposite corners and then put 4 magnets on each washer. MAKE SURE THE MAGNETS ARE FACING THE SAME WAY!!!

-Then you put the sharpened circular dowel rod through the plastic bottle piece and cardboard magnetic piece, but the rod through the eye hook and put the pointed end on the screw.

-Lastly we coiled the wire. I recommend having four different coils (make sure wire is going same direction)

-we tried one large wire and it produced electricity but not as much as the four separate coils.

-Then you take off the plastic at the end of the wires.

* The exact cm are not crucial to your design you just must keep in mind how wide/tall your bottle is

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Results/Discussion

By the end of our project we had tried many different variations of our original setup. Due to faulty voltmeters we were getting incorrect readings of our voltage, to fix this we changed little parts of our build. We started with four coils of 200 rotations of wire and one magnet per washer. We ended with the same coils but four magnets per washer. This helped our voltage a ton! In between our starting setup and our ending setup we tried one large coil of 100 rotations of wire, one large coils of 200 rotations of wire, and then we added the two coils together making two large coils of 300 rotations of wire. None of these variations worked, so for one last try we tried our 4 coils of 200 rotations of wire again. This, with the new voltmeter, gained about 7 volts! This allowed us to be successful in lighting the LED light bulb which required 1.9 volts.

Top Ten

Top Ten Most Important things to Remember

1. Why does the headrest protect you when you are in a car accident?

-  When the car is moving everything in the car is moving, when the car comes to an abrupt stop everything attached to the car will come to a stop, but everything not attached to the car will continue to move. We know this because of Newton’s first law → an object in motion will remain in motion until an outside force acts upon it. Since our heads continue to move the headrest will protect our head’s and necks from overextending.

2. When falling through the air a piece of paper crumpled up goes faster than an uncrumpled piece of paper why?
-the crumpled up piece of paper has less surface area and needs to go faster to reach fair. The larger surface area does not need to go faster to reach its fair.

3.How does a motor work?
-A motor consists of a magnet and a current carrying wire. the magnetic field exerts a force on the wire. this force will cause a torque. the torque will ultimately start the wire moving if the wire is perpendicular to the magnetic field. Once the wire is turning the blades will turn.

4. What happens as someone falls through the air?

-air resistance will grow as he gets faster and will eventually be equal and opposite (netforce=0). and there will be a constant velocity (equillibrium). Fweight is constant, fair is growing. It stops when fair becomies equal to it’s fweight. *Velocity increases until it reaches a constant speed. the Netforce is decreasing and will eventually reach 0, as will the acceleration.

5. How does a horse pull a buggy

-The reason the horse and teh buggy move forward is because the horse pushes the buggy harder than the buggy does. Both the horse and the buggy pull eachother with the same force. We know this because of Newtosn 3rd law which is every reaction has an equal and opposite reaction.

6. How does a computer read your credit card number
-there is a coil of wire (not current filled). On the credit card there are a series of magnet. when the magnets pass through the loop of wire, the magnetic field will change. this change will then induce a current. Finally the current will act as a signal to tell the computer what your credit card number is.

7. When you are riding in a car and it makes a Uturn you feel like you are forced to go sliding out of the car...why?

-Intertia-doing what you already want to be doing. centripital force-center seeking force, keeps you going into a curve. and the centrifigal force, which is a center fleeing force.

8. Why are train wheels shaped like they are?

-Because the wheels are self correcting and when the train shifts to the left the larger diameter of the wheels are on the left track and the smaller diameter of the wheels is on the right track. Therefore, the smaller diameter is slower tangentially and the larger ones are faster. Therefore, the train will curve to the left, keeping it on the track.

9. Why does the paperclip stick to the magnet?

-domains in a paper clip are random. (domains=cluster of electrons spinning in the same direction) the magnet has a magnetic field. when the magnet gets close to the paperclip the domains of the paperclip alighn to match the magnetic field of the magnet. The paperclip now has a north and south pole. The north pole of the paperclip is attracted to the south pole of the magnet thus the paper clip sticks to the magnet.

10. How does a generator work?

-Mechanical energy in → electrical energy out. move magnets over spinning wires which changes the magnetic field of the wires, which induces a voltage, causing a current and the current is used to run the lightbulb or blender.