(BPA Science Lab title)
(Opening title sequence with music)
Mike Hulse, BPA Electrical Engineer: Hi, I’m Mike.
Kellie Robinson, BPA Electrical Engineer: And I’m Kellie.
Mike: And we’re engineers at the Bonneville Power Administration.
Kellie: Today we’re going to show you how to build your own turbine.
Mike: What’s a turbine?
Kellie: A turbine is a wheel or a cylinder that has blades attached to it.
The blades are pushed on by a force, which causes the wheel or the cylinder to turn.
It’s connected to a generator which creates power.
Mike: Oh.
You know we have a lot of turbines here in the Pacific Northwest that are powered by
water.
Kellie: Yes, I believe that’s called hydropower.
We also have a lot of wind turbines on our system now.
Mike: We should do a test to see how that works.
Kellie: That’s a great idea.
(Sound of paper ruffling)
(Insert Advertisement Here)
(Kellie and Mike reading their lines)
Mike: Today, we’re going to do an experiment that you can do in your classroom with things
that you’ll find around the house.
Kellie: Here’s what you’ll need: some masking tape, a large paper cup, an unsharpened
pencil, a pair of scissors, some large index cards, some washers and nuts for weight and
some string.
Mike: So in your classroom beak up into groups of 2 or 3 people and figure out a design that
will catch the most amount of wind.
Shall we give it a shot?
Kellie: Yeah, let’s build some!
Mike: We’re going to see which design can lift the most number of washers.
Okay, Kellie.
I think we’ve got a few samples ready.
Should we try them out?
Kellie: Let’s try them out, here.
Mike: Great.
We have a small test setup here that has a motor acting as a generator, hooked to a multi-meter.
If you don’t have those things, we can show you a different design with a cardboard box
in a few moments.
Today, we’re going to use a shop-vac [vacuum] on the exhaust side to power our wind turbine.
Let’s see if the turbine works.
Not so good.
Maybe we’ll try one of the other designs.
About 2.2 volts, Kellie.
Okay.
How about you try?
Kellie: We just reset the display on the meter.
Now I’m going to try out my design.
Let’s see what I got.
1.35 [volts].
Looks like I need to go back to the drawing board.
(laughter)
Mike: Well, let’s reset the meter and try another design.
3.44 [volts]
Kellie: This design is just kind of a quick thing I slapped together for the purpose of
this experiment.
It kind of looks like fun.
Here it goes.
Mike: How did you do this time, Kellie?
3.18 [volts]
Here it goes.
This design isn’t as good either.
But that’s okay.
It’s all about going back and refining your design.
Mike: I like both of our second tries.
They seemed to have captured the most wind and spun the fastest.
Kellie: Okay, good job.
Blooper: “Okay, Kellie.
Should we test some of them out?”
“Well, you’ve got four and I only made one.”
“It’s a wheel.”
“Not so good, Kellie …”
Mike: We used this kind of setup today, but if you don’t have access to this type of
equipment you can make your own out of a cardboard box and some tape.
But instead of using a motor as a generator to create electricity, we can just try lifting
a washer.
So just like before, we’re going to use the shop-vac to power it.
That’s another way to find out how powerful your turbine is — adding more washers.
Kellie: That’s one way you can keep score.
Mike: Good job, Kellie.
You did it.
Kellie: Thanks.
I was able to successfully lift three little weights.
You can make lots of designs like we did or you can just pick one and stick with it.
See what changes you can make to get your turbine to spin faster or lift more weights.
Mike: Keep tinkering with your design to make sure it works the best way possible.
Kellie: Testing and improving your design is all part of the engineering process.
Mike: We enjoy being engineers because we love tinkering, problem solving and keeping
the power flowing in the Pacific Northwest.
Kellie: If you’re interested in engineering, check out after school activities such as
the BPA Science Bowl, Lego robotics, or your school science fair.
Kellie: Hey, that was really fun, Mike.
Thanks.
Mike: Good job.
How about that secret handshake?
(Kellie laughing)
(Dance music)
Kellie: There you go.
(Laughter)