Wind Turbine Generator Blog

Background-
      To understand how a wind turbine generator works, one must first understand the importance of the coils of wire and the magnets. After making the wire into a thick coil and aligning the four magnets on the shaft correctly, this creates a magnetic field which is what actually produces the voltage. Once the fan blades are powered by the fan blowing on it, the turbine will actually generate a voltage.

Materials-

      If someone where to recreate our turbine, they would need the following materials. PVC pipes for main unit of turbine, wood sheet for base, wood dowel for shaft, four magnets, copper wire, and a fan blade to attach to the shaft. We put the four magnets around the shaft, taking note of which direction they should be facing. We put the coil of wire above the magnets so that it would create a magnetic field between the two. We then put the fan blade on the end of the shaft so that it would catch the wind when the fan blew on it.

Results and Discussion/Tips-
     There were many different factors that led to the amount of voltage induced. First of all, friction is a big factor in how much voltage you will produce. If you want a higher voltage, try to make the friction as minimal as possible. However, you can also increase the voltage by having more coils or by making the one coil thicker. At first, our coil wasn't working so we had to make it thicker. This ended up helping significantly and allowed our turbine to actually produce a voltage. At first we tried making our own fan blades out of cardboard, but it ended up not working too great so I luckily found a small fan blade which we ended up using. My one most important piece of advice is to not procrastinate and actually get your turbine done. My group and I finished early so we were relaxing while other groups were rushing to finish their turbines. Good luck.

The Top Ten Most Interesting Topics of Physics

1. Electricity
While initially hard to fully understand, I found this topic the most interesting of the entire year. I really enjoyed talking about this because electronics are so common in our lives today, so actually learning about things applicable in my life was a blast. Learning about light bulbs and how houses were wired was very useful. I learned that you want your house to be wired in a parallel circuit so that if one appliance blows, the others will keep working, where they would all blow in a series circuit. I found this helpful as I now know why all the other appliances in my house keep working if a bulb blows.

2. Charges
I found the topic of charges surprisingly interesting. I really liked the big question that came along with this topic; why does our hair stand up after taking a sweater or hat off? I enjoyed how this was a relevant question in my life because I have had this happen before. I learned that the hat steals electrons from your hair as you take it off, and the like charges in your hair repel. Since your hair is light enough to stand up, it does when the charges repel.

3. Magnetism
This recent topic was another interesting one for me. I once again enjoyed the relevance of the material we were learning, and I have always found magnets interesting. While some of the specifics were not the most interesting, I liked learning about how credit cards work. I learned that the card has a magnetic strip with a code on the back with different levels of magnetism. When you swipe it, the card reader has coils that induces a voltage/current and detects the different levels of magnetism, ultimately sending this to a computer which translates the code. I found this very interesting and applicable.

4. Motors
I found motors to be interesting also because they are very relevant and useful in almost everyone's life. They are in cars, toys, and a countless number of other things. I learned that a motor is made up of two coils and magnets and they convert electrical energy to mechanical energy. It uses the coils and the magnets with an electric field to convert this energy. Actually making a motor was interesting as well, and I found this helpful yet engaging as I would encounter many motors later in my life.

5. Machines
Learning about machines was neat. I never realized how useful a simple machine like a ramp or pulley actually is until I learned about them. I learned that when using a ramp, the force is actually the same if you push a box up a ramp or just lift the box up. The difference is that the force is split up so that you don't have to exert all your force at once. This is what actually makes something like a ramp quite useful in our lives.

6. Newton's 1st Law
This was the very first topic we learned about in physics. Having never taken physics before this, it was very a very interesting topic to start off with. Newton's 1st Law states, "An object in motion will stay in motion, and an object at rest will stay at rest unless acted on by an outside force." It seemed simple enough, but when we talked about real world examples I actually understood it. I learned that the objects on a table will stay at rest when you pull the tablecloth out because of Newtons' first law.

7. Torque
Torque was confusing at first, but after learning more about it and it's applications, I had a much easier time understanding it. I even understood it well enough that Nolan, Walker, and I made a rap for our podcast about torque. I learned that torque=force x lever arm, and that this is helpful when talking about opening doors. Since the hinges of a door are far away, this creates a long lever arm and therefore requires only a small amount of force to exerted when opening the door. I found this interesting and helpful as I opened doors a lot, however I never thought of why the hinges were where they are.

8. The Earth's Magnetic Field
Similar to magnetism, but more specific in regards to earth's magnetic field. I really enjoyed learning about our planet's magnetic field because I learned several things I had not known before. The most interesting thing I learned was that the north and south of earth are the geometric directions, and not magnetic. The north pole is actually the magnetic south pole and the south pole is actually the magnetic north pole. This was a very interesting fact I learned from this topic. I will use this knowledge later in life by telling people and surprising (hopefully) them.

9. Magnetic Paper Clip
This is another sub-topic under magnetism, but I really enjoyed magnetism so I will keep writing more about it. I found the question of how a paper clip can be turned into a magnet interesting. I learned that the paper clip originally has unaligned domains, but when it is moved near a magnet, the paper clip's domains align. The paper clip now has a north and south pole, and when it is moved next to the magnet, it will attract because the poles will be opposite.

10. Work
No, not work on homework. Work is a topic we learned about along with power. Doing work on something means that you are exerting a force on it, and we generally connected this with carrying things. For example, the question "When you are holding/lifting a 10kg box and carrying it forward with you over 10m, how much work are you doing on the box?" This is a trick question, because you aren't actually doing any work on the box because of the fact that if the forces are parallel then no work is done. It was slightly confusing, but after I understood it, it was helpful and interesting.

Motor Blog

      The battery supplies voltage to the motor. From this voltage, it also allows current to run through the motor. The two paperclips on either end act as stands, however they must both be touching the ends of the battery so that current can flow through them. The magnet that sits on top of the battery creates the magnetic field that contributes to the wire actually spinning. The actual copper wire loop is the most important part. Once wrapped in a circular loop, it sits on top of the paperclip rests and will spin (assuming it works).
      We scraped the entire tail of one end of the copper loop and just the bottom half of the other tail. We did this because when the loop flips over, the current will be opposite from the force, so this was necessary in order to make it continue spinning.
      The motor actually turns for several different reasons. First, the magnetic field created by the magnet puts a force on the copper loop. Second, the current in the wire will flow where the wire is scraped, so the way in which we scraped the wire is important. Last, the direction of the force will change as the loop flips, so that is also why we scraped only the bottom half on one tail of the wire.

This motor could be used for several different purposes. Mainly, it could be used for education as a demonstration in school, such as we did. It shows that you can make a motor with simple household items. However, this could also be used to impress your friends, or to show off to your parents. Lastly, it could be used for simple entertainment. If you are easily entertained, you could have a blast watching the motor spin for hours and hours.