@DrG
Yeah - the me part definitely is the weak link. She's got all the enthusaism and time, and all I can bring is patchy recollection of electromagntic principles - learnt at degree level, but with almost zero practical experience and a couple of decades to forget all the theory too!
That wind turbine is exactly the kind of thing that I'd like to do for stage 2. Though we might make the tubine ourselves -e.g. from some card or plastic cups mounted on some sticks. I wonder if balance will be an issue, or whether we'll be able to connect our construction to the shaft firmly enough to transmit all that wind power.
In that kit, the turbine is connected directly to the shaft. I wonder what RPM you could achieve like that. The motor specs from the kit seem to be:
Output voltage : DC 0.01v - 5.5v
Output current : 0.01 - 100mA
Rated speed : 100 - 6000 rev/min
That doesn't seem a million miles off the motor I linked to above:
Supply Voltage 4.5 - 15 V dc
Power Rating 7.98 W
Output Speed 9869 rpm
Current Rating 990 mA
Do you think I could reuse my motor to create a similar wind turbine?
@Jeroen3 - Yes - I did think about a dynamo. But I felt it was perhaps a bit too pre-built. I'm trying to get as close to first principles as possible. I started by thinking about wrapping wire around cylinder. But then I found out I'd be looking at 1,500 or so turns. She swears that she'd be up for that, but I reckon I'd probably end up having to do the final 1,450 of those turns
At least with a motor, it's a component that we can make into other things too - so it feels a bit closer to fundamental building blocks.