Wind energy

Assemble your own tabletop wind power station!

Difficulty:
Danger:
Duration:
15 minutes

Safety

  • Carefully review the general safety advice on the back of the box cover before starting the experiment.
  • Disassemble the setup after the experiment.

Step-by-step instructions

Energy is what you need to do anything. To make something hot, you need heat energy; to illuminate any object, you need light energy; to power an electric device, you need electrical energy. Wind turbines don’t just produce electrical energy—they also look great with your own unique logo!

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Wind blows more quickly at a certain distance above the ground. Assemble a stable stand to elevate your wind turbine.

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Now your wind generator can freely rotate to face the wind.

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The faster the blades rotate, the more power they produce. Check it out! The buzzer beeps louder when the generator produces more energy.

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What’s the maximum distance from which you can blow on the wind generator and get the buzzer to beep?

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Disposal

  • Dispose of solid waste together with household garbage.

Scientific description

Our devices require energy  to work, and they get this energy from electricity. But electrical energy  can’t be produced from nothing—it can only be obtained from some other form of energy . This energy demand is mostly met by fossil fuels, which are finite and pollute our surroundings. Humanity is in the process of tapping into alternative energy sources, which are renewable and less harmful to nature.

Every moving object holds energy , including wind . Wind can act on other objects, blowing them around, and thus share its energy. Think of how wind  enters a sail and propels a ship across water.A wind turbine is a device that produces electrical energy  when its blades  move. As wind  strikes the blades , it shares its energy  and causes the blades to rotate. The faster the blades rotate, the more electrical energy the turbine produces. That’s why it’s advantageous to place turbines where the wind blows constantly and at high speeds, far from any forests and buildings that would hinder it.