WINDMILL PROKECT-3

The project was all about making a windmill, and making it in a way that it produced energy to a light bulb. We were given a big box of parts and a bike. From these things we were supposed to make a windmill. All the parts from the bike could be important parts on the windmill. Our goal with this project was to get the windmill to produce enough energy to get the light bulb to give us light. The windmill was tested in the real Norwegian wind. This was a great challenge to see if the windmill was strong.

Now I will explain how a windmill works in a simple way. A windmill transforms the wind power into a thing that makes the windmill blades move round in circles. The amount of energy that is led to the rotor depends on how the air is, how big the rotor is and how fast the wind moves.

After we had learned the basics of windmill power production, we started to find parts we could use for our own windmill. We found a bike wheel, a bike dynamo, Plexiglas, some wires and a light bulb. All the different parts were welded on to a base. This base was very heavy, so that the windmill would be stable in the wind. When we considered we had finished with the rough work on the windmill, we could start the process with the dynamo and the light bulb.

If our windmill had to work perfectly, we had to come up with at plan. We drew a sketch that showed the windmill finished. Everybody in the group divided the work into parts and started the work. Cesare and Francesco started cutting the Plexiglas in the right size. The Plexiglas was going to be the wings on the windmill. The other two started some small work, like welding and drilling. We welded the whole base before we started any work that involved putting the windmill together. Because of the difficulty of getting the windmill to work right, we had to make the parts in a way that we were sure they would fit. We only had one problem with the windmill. We had trouble with the dynamo; it didn’t want to give us light. With some help from glue, tread and tape we got light from the “beautiful” windmill.

The people in our group were Cesare Facini, Francesco Pascolini, Eirik Fylling and Silje Seth Hildrestrand. Considering the time and the environment, the group worked well together. The language situation was difficult, we didn’t speak Italian and they didn’t speak Norwegian. The English could have been better, but we understood almost everything as the time went by. We did never think we could win the competition, but we didn’t want to loose either. We noticed that the other groups had some nice mills and we started to worry. That is why we started to concentrate about finishing the project and making the windmill work. Not everybody worked as much as the rest. The two Italian boys came into our group with fresh energy and motivation. They wanted to do so much in so little time that they worked a lot. But the windmill was completed, who did what, that is not important.

When all the windmills where finished, they were tested. Because of the weather, he had to wait for the wind to arrive. Our group did put much energy into getting our windmill as light as possible. We used some kind of glass for the blades. And when the wind came, the blades didn’t cope with the wind. The blades broke. The windmill would have worked perfectly if it hadn’t been for the glass. The little time it worked it produced power, just a shame that we didn’t use stronger materials. If we had used stronger materials, our windmill could absolutely have been the winning windmill.