Miniature Windmill Biomimicry projectFor my project I will be designing and creating two separate windmills with different blade designs. One blade design will be the traditional windmill design, while the other will have tubercles based on whale fins. Once completed, both windmills will be attached a meter and a battery to track their efficiency.
Project InspirationBiomimicry is already a common and useful technique engineers use to build an efficient design. In fact, whale fin tubercles have already been used on airplane wing designs. My hypothesis is if the airplane is more fuel efficient because it is more aerodynamic, then the wind turbine with the tubercles will be more efficient for the same reason.
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Project Plan
1. Think of project, inspiration, and why I wanted to do it
2. State hypothesis
3. Sketch blade designs
4. Find frame for turbine online (Because this is not a variable I am testing, I don't feel the need to design my own.)
5. Design blade designs in a 3D Design program such as SketchUp
6. 3D Print blades, begin building the frames
7. Assemble the turbines entirely, putting the blades onto the hub
8. Experiment on efficiency once both turbines are completed, with no difference besides the blade designs.
Log of Events
October 19th
October 20-28th
Been super busy working on some other stuff. I did some researching on what makes for an efficient blade and will try to implement what I have learned into a 3D design. I learned the most from Wikipedia and Alternative Energy News.
http://www.alternative-energy-news.info/efficiency-of-wind-turbine-blades/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_turbine_design#Aerodynamics
The idea of 3D designing in general just sounds depressing at this point.
October 29th,
In order to move the project forward, I need to attain the knowledge on designing and printing a 3D object. Once I do that, the project's largest hurdle should be over with. (That is me checking in with no progress at all.)
I've been thinking about just making the blades out of cardboard, as well.
November 30th,
So! New idea. I really am not amazing at 3D design. It has been awful. So I'm going to make some blades out of wood! Will saves the day!
December 3rd
December 5th
December 6th
December 7th-8th
Final Reflection
Conclusion: The experimenter, me, failed to create products adequate to perform in the experiments. No data was recorded.
Reflection:
My idea for this project came from listening to a friend's mom telling us about whale fin tubercles and how Boeing has been testing them for airplanes. I recalled learning about it prior to that lesson, and decided it would be a fun project to create wind turbines with the same tubercle patterns as whale fins. However, I did not realize how much work the project would take once I started it and I definitely didn't take roadblocks into account when planning.
Overall, the project was a fun experience, but there were multiple stressing moments throughout it. I would say my most stressing issue was designing the blades, originally, I was going to design the blades using polyurethane resin and a mold. I realized very quickly that this would not work because I simply did not have a way to create the mold and that it would be a whole other step for the design process. That is when I thought of using a 3D Design program to create my blades, then 3D print them. I deeply regret that decision because I had no prior knowledge in 3D Design and did not know it was going to be so difficult to create curved objects. I spent a very long period of time on attempting to 3D Design on 123D Design and SketchUp that I began running low on time with nearly nothing done. If I had not spent so much time focusing on 3D printing, I could've put more time into creating the blades in other ways.
I really enjoyed creating the blade designs on Illustrator and laser cutting them out of wood. Although they was enjoyable to create, the blades are far too heavy to sustain any movement as a result of air pushing them. In order to fix this, I would have had to realize the issue earlier on, and sand down the blades until they were about 50% thinner and had a narrower edge. The blades were also not set at an optimal angle because I did not know how to calculate that. (Dr. Don said it can't be calculated without experimenting.) If I had the opportunity to experiment on the optimal angle, I would because I know the blades would transfer more energy that way.
Another issue I had was the hub for the blades. With Will's help, I cut out hubs to hold the blades out of wood. During the drilling of the holes for the blades to be held in, both of the hubs broke in different places. This mistake occurred because the wood we used was thin and the drill bit created a pressure point. If I were to redo this project, I would probably refrain from drilling any holes in the hub. Instead, I would sandwich the blades between two pieces of wood, each blade at an angle and with something to compensate for the angle. In the end, I ended up using Styrofoam for the hub because I needed something that would fit onto the motor properly. I think it would have been fun to try out other materials with more time because Styrofoam is not necessarily aesthetically pleasing. I also noticed some friction on the traditional blade turbine, resulting from the Styrofoam rubbing against the motor's front side slightly.
Things I would do differently if I had the chance to:
1. Time management, I would make sure to manage everything instead of just going step by step. I did not know how to manage my time once big dilemmas came up.
2. Blade design, I would create my blades out of wood from the start because I know I could perfect the blades if I had put more time into wood blades and no time into 3D Design.
3. Frame design, I would design my own frame and make them aesthetically pleasing.
4. Experiment design, I would put more thought into how the experiment would be carried out. (which wouldn't be difficult so long as I had final products to experiment with.)
Reflection:
My idea for this project came from listening to a friend's mom telling us about whale fin tubercles and how Boeing has been testing them for airplanes. I recalled learning about it prior to that lesson, and decided it would be a fun project to create wind turbines with the same tubercle patterns as whale fins. However, I did not realize how much work the project would take once I started it and I definitely didn't take roadblocks into account when planning.
Overall, the project was a fun experience, but there were multiple stressing moments throughout it. I would say my most stressing issue was designing the blades, originally, I was going to design the blades using polyurethane resin and a mold. I realized very quickly that this would not work because I simply did not have a way to create the mold and that it would be a whole other step for the design process. That is when I thought of using a 3D Design program to create my blades, then 3D print them. I deeply regret that decision because I had no prior knowledge in 3D Design and did not know it was going to be so difficult to create curved objects. I spent a very long period of time on attempting to 3D Design on 123D Design and SketchUp that I began running low on time with nearly nothing done. If I had not spent so much time focusing on 3D printing, I could've put more time into creating the blades in other ways.
I really enjoyed creating the blade designs on Illustrator and laser cutting them out of wood. Although they was enjoyable to create, the blades are far too heavy to sustain any movement as a result of air pushing them. In order to fix this, I would have had to realize the issue earlier on, and sand down the blades until they were about 50% thinner and had a narrower edge. The blades were also not set at an optimal angle because I did not know how to calculate that. (Dr. Don said it can't be calculated without experimenting.) If I had the opportunity to experiment on the optimal angle, I would because I know the blades would transfer more energy that way.
Another issue I had was the hub for the blades. With Will's help, I cut out hubs to hold the blades out of wood. During the drilling of the holes for the blades to be held in, both of the hubs broke in different places. This mistake occurred because the wood we used was thin and the drill bit created a pressure point. If I were to redo this project, I would probably refrain from drilling any holes in the hub. Instead, I would sandwich the blades between two pieces of wood, each blade at an angle and with something to compensate for the angle. In the end, I ended up using Styrofoam for the hub because I needed something that would fit onto the motor properly. I think it would have been fun to try out other materials with more time because Styrofoam is not necessarily aesthetically pleasing. I also noticed some friction on the traditional blade turbine, resulting from the Styrofoam rubbing against the motor's front side slightly.
Things I would do differently if I had the chance to:
1. Time management, I would make sure to manage everything instead of just going step by step. I did not know how to manage my time once big dilemmas came up.
2. Blade design, I would create my blades out of wood from the start because I know I could perfect the blades if I had put more time into wood blades and no time into 3D Design.
3. Frame design, I would design my own frame and make them aesthetically pleasing.
4. Experiment design, I would put more thought into how the experiment would be carried out. (which wouldn't be difficult so long as I had final products to experiment with.)