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Lab report: Turbine Project
Class: A1
Date of presentation: April 29, 2010
Members of Lab Group 9:
LaShea Shaw,
Kylon Wagner,
Maxwell Diamond
Typed by LaShea Shaw
Introduction and Background
information:
It has been determined through trial and
error over about 150 years that the most
effective wind turbine has three blades.
Over time it has also been determined that
the horizontal axis turbine is more effective
at capturing wind movement especially
since the turbine can be moved to face into
the wind.
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Purpose:
The purpose of our wind turbine project was
to determine which student blade design was
more effective at generating speed and thus
millivolts in differing wind speeds.
Hypothesis
A cardboard wind turbine, glued together
onto a CD motor, then placed a constant
distance from a fan and tested at 15 seconds
at both high and low fan speeds will produce
more millivolts than a paper towel core
windmill design turbine.
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Procedure
In this investigation, the following materials
were used:
Materials:
1) A CD (compact disk)
2) materials of choice for blade construction,
excluding metal
3) scissors and glue
The turbines were constructed according to
the “Physics lab” specifications listed on the
Science Olympiad website.
Honors Physics classes were graded on
performance (millivolts generated) at high
and low fan speeds. Regular Physics classes
were only graded on millivolts generated at
low fan speed.
The projects were tested and graded
according to the following rubric supplied
by Dr. Barnes.
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No entry
0 points
No hypothesis
0 points
Blades >3 cm off
0 points
Improper materials
Metal present
0 points
Low speed test @ 15 s
High speed test @ 15 s
Hon only
Physics Spring project testing rubric, wind turbine, Dr. Barnes
Entry does not spin
Entry spins freely
10 points
25 points
Hypothesis stated but no comparison
Hypothesis stated and compared to
provided
another group/entry
5 points
10 points
Blades +/- 3 cm off
Blades within 25-28 cm range
5 points
10 pts
Proper materials used
For more details, go to www.soinc.org,
CD with no metal
Event info, Division C entries and
10 pts
Physics lab.
All others divide performance by best class
Highest mv generated = 10 points
entry and multiply by 10
Reg=65 pts possible
Hon= 75 pts possible
Same as above
Highest mv generated = 10 points
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Timeline:
Early February-Introduce Turbine project
Mid February-build Turbines and
preliminary testing
Early March-Test Turbines
Late March and Early April-Work on one
lab report for Class
April 22-23 Group Turbine Lab reports
due/A1 attaches report to trifold
April 29 ThinkShow! Final project due for
Exhibition class
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Data and Data collection:
In our test of our cardboard design we
generated 11 millivolts of electricity at the
low fan speed and 16 millivolts of electricity
at the high fan speed. (See graphs 1.3 and
1.2)
We compared to the paper towel core design
which generated 0 millivolts at the low fan
speed and 54 millivolts at the high fan
speed. (See graphs 1.10 and 1.9)
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Discussion and Conclusion(s):
One of the problems in the testing of our
cardboard design and the paper towel core
design was durability. Our project fell off as
it spun on the testing device. Initially the
cardboard design was in the 102 millivolts
range but it fell off near the end of our 15
second time span at which the data was
collected. After replacing our entry on the
device it did not achieve its previous
capabilities. Our project therefore had the
potential to do much better but suffered
from engineering problems. We were the
only entry for a cardboard design in our
division.
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Paper towel core ranged in millivolts
generated from 0 to 180 at the high fan
speed and 0 to 100 at the low fan speed.
The paper towel core design was the most
common entry, however, due to the broad
range of data collected for this design it also
suffered from engineering design
difficulties.
Our conclusion is that although the paper
towel core design had better provisions and
results, our cardboard design had the
potential to do much better than its
counterpart. In order to get the best result
we recommend modifying our fin length to a
shorter design and using the proper materials
for the design.
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If wind turbines are going to be effective in
producing energy they must be durable. We
learned in our project that even with the
potential to perform well, our engineering
problems blocked the real effectiveness of
generating energy. The engineering design
of our project would need attention before it
could be mass produced to harness the
energy of the wind.
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