Austin Graham
Frank Pickering
Jessie Werden
Jonathan Wood
The Pinwheel
Overview
The task of creating a windmill that will generate electricity was not a simple one. It took
several different designs and prototypes. All three prototypes were unsuccessful but we know
they were close in accomplishing our goal. With the first prototype we accomplished a flicker
that lasted only a fraction of a second. So we tried to adjust our machine to make a constant
flicker but when we did this we could not get any results from the light bulb. With the last
prototype we made .65 volts which is a little less than half the voltage to make the bulb produce
light as we discovered in the demonstrations.
Wind Energy
Wind energy has been around for over 5,000 years starting with the Egyptians. Using it
for everything from ships to grinding grain and for sawmills. They started being used for
electricity in the early 1920s in the United States. They first began using electric power from
windmills to transport power to rural areas in the 1930s. Windmills became less and less popular
when other power systems were put into place. But in the 1970s with the oil shortage windmills
were one of the alternative sources of energy. In the 1980s the windmill made a drastic
comeback in California because it is a clean and renewable source of energy which helps sustain
nonrenewable natural resources (http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/kids/energy.cfm?page=wind_home-).
‘There are two basic designs of wind electric turbines: vertical-axis, or "egg-beater" style, and horizontalaxis (propeller-style) machines. Horizontal-axis wind turbines are most common today, constituting
nearly all of the "utility-scale" (100 kilowatts, kW, capacity and larger) turbines in the global market.”
( http://www.awea.org/faq/wwt_basics.html). Though wind energy is a clean and renewable
source of energy there are still some disadvantages of using wind powered generators. For
instance, cost is one of the more important issues because these systems require a higher initial
investment than fossil fuels (http://windeis.anl.gov/guide/basics/index.cfm) . About eighty
percent of the cost goes towards the machinery. The rest of the cost is for the site preparation
and installation of the machine. But operating costs are minimal since they essentially operate
from the wind of the Earth. Another concern would be the impact the windmills have on the
environment. One is the complaints about the loud noises made by the rotor blades and the fact
that they are not aesthetically pleasing. Overall, the pros outweigh the cons associated with wind
energy.
Design Process
To start with we researched generators and gained a rough idea of what we needed to do.
We knew we had to get magnets rotating across copper wire to create a voltage. So we assigned
two people to make the coil, one to make the propeller, and one to make the housing that we
would mount the coil and the propeller. We tried to all do separate parts and then just bring them
together to try and make our design work but we ran into obvious problems when using this
method. Our main problem was that we all had slightly different ideas of what it was going to be
like so it was difficult to make it work. Our other problem is that the orientation of the magnets
and the coil would never make enough voltage to light up the light bulb. We ultimately had
three different designs, none of which worked realistically, but in theory our ideas were sound.
Description of Device
Our device was made out of wooden dowel rods lashed together with tape, a second
dowel rod with a pinwheel propeller attached to its front and magnets attached to its center, and a
copper coil with the magnets from the propeller shaft spinning inside of the coil’s center. Our
device was approximately six inches high with a length of one foot. The entire device weighed a
total of 18 ounces.
Efficiency
Our final efficiency percentage was % .651. Needless to say our device was not very
efficient and there was not enough power to accomplish our goal of illuminating the bulb.
Bill of Materials

Propeller ~ $ 4.50

Dowel rods ~ $ 4.00

Copper Wire~$ 1.75

Magnets~$ 8.00

Styrafoam~$ 2.00

Time~FREE!
Conclusions
We were unsuccessful in our attempt to create enough power to illuminate the light bulb.
But we were successful in learning how to work in a group and learning future techniques for
a large project such as this. We learned that we should build the whole thing together and
devote more time earlier in the process than waiting until the last minute to try and build
something up like this. Our main problem was that the device was not successful and we
could not trouble shoot the issues in time to correct them.
References
"Wind Energy Basics." Wind Energy Development. U.S. Department of the Interior, Web. 2 Dec 2009.
"Resources." Wind Energy Basics. American Wind Energy Association, Web. 2 Dec 2009. <h Wind
Basics." EIA Energy Kids. Energy Information Administration, Web. 2 Dec 2009.
<http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/kids/energy.cfm?page=wind_home-basics>.
ttp://www.awea.org/faq/wwt_basics.html>. <http://windeis.anl.gov/index.cfm>.