Energy is one of the biggest issues right now for scientists. Not only are they looking for energy sources that are inexpensive and easy to access, but they are also looking for energy sources that are clean to both produce and use. One energy source that meets all of these requirements is wind energy, and students can help develop the technology used for harvesting and utilizing this energy source.
Project #1 - Energy Output Predictor
There are several different PicoTurbine Windmill Energy Science Fair Projects that can be completed. The first one is going to deal with producing a specific amount of energy using a wind turbine. For this project students will need a wind turbine kit, an understanding of electronics and electricity concepts and a calculator.
The first step is to make a prediction about what your wind turbine is going to be able to do. In this case the hypothesis, or prediction, is going to be that the larger the wind turbine is the more electricity it will be able to produce in one hour. In this hypothesis the variable that is going to be manipulated by the student will be the size of the windmill or wind turbine, and the variable that will be measured will be the amount of electricity that is produced by the turbine per hour. Students will measure the output of the wind turbine in Watts per hour.
The next step is to design an experiment to test the hypothesis. The control experiment for this project will be a medium sized turbine that is about seven inches tall. The test experiments will manipulate the size of the wind turbine. Students can devise test wind turbines that are either taller or that have larger blades.
Project #2 - Wind Turbine Series
Another project that can be developed around wind energy is the creation of a wind farm. In this project the way in which wind farms harvest energy from the turbines will be examined. For example, students can experiment with the way in which the energy is collected from each individual turbine, or they can experiment with the way in which the collective energy is connected or collected from all of the wind turbines on the wind farm.
A hypothesis is one of the first things that will need to be developed. Here one possible hypothesis is that serial wind turbine circuits will be more effective at maximizing electricity collection than parallel circuits. In this hypothesis the variable to be manipulated will be the type of circuit design used and the variable to be measured will be the combined electrical output from the wind farm.
Testing this hypothesis is going to be fairly simple. To start with the student will need to develop a control experiment. In this case the control experiment will be the parallel circuit set-up. The test experiment will involve the serial circuit set up. After setting up and testing each of these circuit designs the student will need to compare the results to see if the serial circuit design is better, worse or the same as the parallel circuit's results.
Conclusion
PicoTurbine Windmill Energy Science Fair Projects are a lot of fun to complete. They are also easier to set up then you might first think. The key here is to read the instructions that come with these wind turbine kits and to then make modifications based on solid electricity science concepts.
**A big thank you to Super Science Fair Projects for writing this post for The Homeschool Desk. To learn more, please visit the Super Science Fair Projects website. And be sure to stay tuned for next week's Science Fair Project installment!**
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