Can you design a better windmill?
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HS1503

HS1503 photos on flickr
HS1503 videos on you tube
Our Design
3 green card blades supported by sticks, but not very evenly spaced around the cork

Our Experiment
Collected some current readings and this one wasn't a great performer, but my second one was. It's the orange one in the wind farm trial. This green one wasn't well balanced.

Results
Reading 1 Current [ 3.2] mA
Reading 2 Current [ 6] mA
Reading 3 Current [ 3] mA
Reading 4 Current [ 4] mA
Average Current = [4.05 ] mA
Windspeed at fan = [s ] ms-1
Resistance = [100 ] Ohms
Power = I * I * R (remember to convert mA to A) 0.00164

So with a windspeed of [s ] our turbine generates an average current of [4.05 ] mA delivering [1.64 ] mW so in 10 minutes it could generate [1.64 * 600 = 984.2 ] mW.

If playing music on an iPod classic consumes about 77mW per second, 10 minutes of turbine time (assuming 100% energy transfer efficiency) can power [ 12.8 ] seconds of playback time, enough to listen to about [ 0.1 ] 3 minute songs.

Thoughts
this one was too heavy with the card, try with paper next

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