Wind Turbine

For our final physics assignment, we made a wind turbine. My group made the most successful wind turbine, courtesy of the 800 turns in our coils. To make our turbine work, we had to make a generator from coils of wire and four magnets. During this project, we created electricity with magnets; this is known as electromagnetic induction. To make our turbine work, we had to induce a current in the coil of wire by changing the magnetic field around the coil. We changed the movement of the charges by putting the magnet there, which realigned the charges which were going in all different direction, to make them all move in the same direction, helping to spin the turbine. This change from mechanical energy to electric energy is what makes the turbine a generator.

The materials we used to make our wind turbine were:
water bottle
coil wires

disk magnets
square dowel
round dowel
LED
fender washer

screws
wood for the platform
glue

We cut a water bottle in half, to fit in the template we cut out, and then glued it to the top and bottom. The water bottle was used to make the turbine spin and thus cause a voltage. Next, we punched a hole into the two cardboard pieces, and put the sharpened piece of round dowel through it, and then let it rest on the top of screw to keep it standing up, and also to let it rotate freely. The most important (and difficult because I'm so bad at wrapping coil apparently) was next. We made 4 coils that connected to each other. Each individual coil had 200 turns, to make a total of 800 turns. We then glued these four coils down onto the wooden base. We then used the fender washers and disk magnets to align with the coils to induce the voltage. All the poles of the magnets were facing the same way so that the current would go in the right direction. Finally, we attached the end pieces of the coils to a LED. Our wind turbine successfully produces a voltage. 

What made our wind turbine so successful was the amount of turns in our coils. The more turns, the more easily a current can run through it. The only problem we had was wrapping the coil 200 x 4 times, and then successfully getting the coils off the cardboard that helped us shape it. Over all, this project was a success for my group. On the final test, I struggled with a question involving wind turbines because I didn't really understand the concept fully. With this project, I was able to understand the function for all the components, and am now able to piece them all together to understand why a wind turbine works.