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This kit has been used by thousands of students, home schoolers, and even adult
hobbyists to learn about wind power and to do awesome energy science fair projects.
It's been used by major universities such as MIT and Caltech, as well as the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) for summer youth programs.
This kit produces fascinating electrical energy science fair projects, science reports, or just plain fun!
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The Battle is on! Vertical vs Horizontal. What will win the compeition?
Science Fair Project Ideas
- Modify the parameters (blades and vane) of either turbine to see how the output changes at different wind speed conditions. When you do with with the WindLab, the vane on the turbine aligns the turbine automatically to the direction of wind.
- Use each windmill independently of each other. Measure the electrical output with the multimeter for each. Which windmill produces more electrical energy?
- Blades and Vane are made from a polypropylene sheet. You can use any suitable sheet material to make your own blades for evaluation.
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With the PicoTurbine Windmill Kit builds
a fully functioning, electricity-producing scale model that is a vertical wind turbine.
The windmill stands 8" tall, produces between 1.7 and 2.5 volts which can light up a bicolor LED
(included) that flashes red and green to show the alternating current produced.
The kit can be easily built in under one hour, less time if used as a group project.
It is the only kit of its kind to demonstrate the power of
wind as a renewable energy resource.
Test different wind turbine blade configurations, various generator components,
the effects of changing wind speeds, or other experiments that are only limited by your imagination.
Each kit includes all the parts you need:
- Four strong magnets (ceramic grade 5-1"x1.75" x 0.25")
- Pre-wound enamel coated copper wire into 4 coils. This saves about 30 minutes from typical project build time over wrapping your own!
- Two feet of 10 gauge aluminum wire for the yoke
- One bi-color light emitting diode LED (red and green) - 2 leads
- A piece of 8" longwooden dowel, sharpened on one end to use as the axel
- A 5" by 8" by 1/2" thick piece of plywood used as a base for the project
- 3-phillips head cross slot screws
- One piece corrugated cardboard about 8" by 10"
- Three retaining lips (small semi-circular metal e-clips)
- One strop of pre-cut double-sided tape pads
- One samll piece of sandpaper for stripping copper wire
- Instruction booklet, including teacher's guide and technical notes.
- Paper templates for cardboard cutout pieces
- The Manual contains classroom ideas and experiments,
as well as technical notes for older students or adult experimenters.
All you must provide are some easily found tools and materials:
Gluestick or glue
A Phillips' screwdriver and scissors
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WindLab is a mini wind turbine (wind power generator) with a horizontal axis and is designed to help students learn wind power technology. The wind turbine converts Kinetic energy from the wind to electrical energy. You can do various experiments with it to understand how wind turbine works to generate electricity.
The special 3 Phase AC Alternator used in the turbine is similar to the one used in real commercial wind turbine.
A Gold Capacitor is included inside the wind turbine to store the energy harvested from the wind. The LED inside the turbine lights up to indicate that electrical energy is being produced.
Features:
Mini wind turbine (wind power generator)
Kit for learning Wind Power Technology
Gold Capacitor for storage of generated electricity
Blade parameters can be modified by user for evaluation
Vane aligns the generator automatically to the direction of wind
Special 3-Phase AC alternator
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The Cen-Tech Multimeter is excellent for measuring your output of electricity from all of the PicoTurbines Science Kits. It displays AC millivolts, adds another dimension to your experiments, and helps to tune the alternator.
You will get accurate readings for DC voltage, DC current, AC voltage, resistance, transistor test, diode test, and battery test. Easy-to-read 3-1/2 digit LCD readout, positive set selector switch, and 32" leads. • Automatic zero adjust • Overange indicator • 2.5x second sample time • Low battery indicator • Fuse and diode protected circuit.
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A small horizontal-axis wind turbine (HAWT) has the main rotor shaft and electrical generator at the top of the tower and is pointed into the wind by a wind vane.
Advantage: The tall tower base allows access to stronger wind in sites with wind shear. Wind shear, sometimes referred to as windshear or wind gradient, is a difference in wind speed and direction over a relatively short distance in the atmosphere.
A vertical-axis wind turbine (or VAWT) has the main rotor shaft arranged vertically. One key advantage of this arrangement is that the turbine does not need to be pointed into the wind to be effective. This is an advantage on sites where the wind direction is highly variable.
The question for you is "Which wind turbine is best for where you live?"
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