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Grades
8 to 12 |
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Introduction:
(Initial
Observation)
| For many years, energy of
moving water has been used to grind grains and run machinery such as
wood working, knitting and cutting machinery. Many of these places are
now preserved as museums. With modern technology, the energy of water is
not directly used to do do the job. Instead, water energy is used to
produce electricity and the electricity is used to run different
machinery.
Since the flow of water is seasonal, dams are made to control
the water flow and produce electricity all year long. With dams, storing
water is storing energy. |
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In this project you will make a
working model of a water turbine and calculate the amount of electrical
energy that can be produced by your water turbine. You can make a water
turbine using wood. So wood working skills, some tools
and adult supervision and help is required for this project.
| Dear
This page is available to all
ScienceProject members as a source of additional information,
ideas or experiments.
No support is available for the
information in this page. |
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Information
Gathering:
Gather information about your
project. If you are a basic or advanced member of ScienceProject.com,
your project advisor may prepare the initial information that you need
and enter them in this section. In any case it is necessary for you to
read additional books, magazines or ask professionals
who might know in order to learn more about the subject of your research. Keep track of where you got your information from.
Components
These are the components or parts for each of most water mills.
Water Wheel
The Water Wheel draws the power for the mill from a current of water.
The Water Wheel transmits the energy trough a shaft to other
parts of a mill to do a work or run an electric generator.
Transmission of energy can be done
using gears, pulleys and belts.
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Question/ Purpose:
What do you want to
find out? Write a statement that describes what you want to do.
Use your observations and questions to write the statement.
The purpose of this project is to
build a small wooden water wheel and connect it to a bicycle generator
in order to produce electricity.
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Identify Variables:
When you think you
know what variables may be involved, think about ways to change
one at a time. If you change more than one at a time, you will
not know what variable is causing your observation. Sometimes
variables are linked and work together to cause something. At
first, try to choose variables that you think act independently
of each other.
Variables that may affect the
production of electricity are design variables such as size of the water
wheel and the shape of buckets made on the wheel. Design variables
affect the speed and torque of the wheel. On the other hand higher
torque and speed of the water wheel, when transferred to a generator,
produces a higher amount of electricity.
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Hypothesis:
Based on your gathered
information, make an educated guess about the answer to your question or
the result of your experiment.
My hypothesis is that the force of a
wooden water wheel with 2 feet diameter can be transmitted to a small
generator (directly or using belts and pulleys) to produce
electricity.
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Experiment
Design:
Design an experiment
to test each hypothesis. Make a step-by-step list of what you
will do to answer each question. This list is called an experimental
procedure. For an experiment to give answers you can trust, it
must have a "control." A control is an additional experimental
trial or run. It is a separate experiment, done exactly like
the others. The only difference is that no experimental variables
are changed. A control is a neutral "reference point"
for comparison that allows you to see what changing a variable
does by comparing it to not changing anything. Dependable controls
are sometimes very hard to develop. They can be the hardest part
of a project. Without a control you cannot be sure that changing
the variable causes your observations. A series of experiments
that includes a control is called a "controlled experiment."
So you want to make a water wheel and
use it's energy to run an electric generator. There are many ways that
you can design your project. For example you may construct a wooden
water wheel and connect it to a bicycle generator to produce
electricity. Or you may convert an existing bicycle wheel to a water
wheel by connecting aluminum or plastic cups to that.
Start by drawing your design and doing
the calculations. Imagine that you want to give your drawings to a
builder and he is supposed to complete the project without your
supervision or advise. Preparing the drawings and doing the calculations
is what engineers do. So this is your chance to test your engineering
skills.
How big should your water wheel be?
It depends on the generator that you use. The generator needs certain
torque (rotational force) and certain rotational speed in order to
produce electricity. Your water wheel should be able to produce enough
force or you will get no electricity. Test your generator to see how
much force do you need to run it efficiently and produce electricity.
Use a volt meter to see what is the voltage produced by your generator
at different speeds. You may use pulleys or gears to increase the
rotational speed (Number of turns per minute).
How should I design the water
wheel? Here is a sample:
The idea is that one side of the wheel
should hold some water and become heavy, causing the wheel to spin. As
you know more water results more weight and more torque (rotational
force) on the wheel.
| I decided to make my
drawings and see how much water do the cups hold in different
designs.
In first design I will use two
wooden circles with the diameter of two feet and a wooden cylinder
with the diameter of 16 inches and height of 6 inches.
I will mount the circles on the
bases of cylinder to make spool. I will then use 12 pieces of 6 x
10 wood paddles to make the cups or buckets. Since water level is
horizontal, I can see how much water does the wheel hold in one
side in my drawings. |
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| I noticed that the
bottom of buckets is too narrow and it does not hold much water.
So I cam up with a second design to use an angle as buckets. So I
replaced each 6 x 10 wood paddle with two pieces connected to each
other to form an L shape.
I decided to use a 6 x 2 piece of
wood that forms the bottom of each bucket and a 6 x 8 that forms
the side of each bucket. The drawing showed that this design will
hold more water than the previous one. |
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| Now that enlarging the
bottom of buckets can increase the amount of water stored in
buckets, I increased it again. In this drawing I assumed that the
bottoms are three inches wide, instead of 2 inches. So pieces of
3" x 6" will be used.
This again showed an increase in
the size of buckets and any water hitting the outside of each
bucket, simply slides down into the lower bucket. |
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| I also made another
drawing as you see in the right, but it does not seem to be as
good. In this drawing the bottom of buckets are about 5".
That is why they are slanted. One problem that I noticed in this
drawing is that water hitting the outside of a bucket, does not
easily enter the next bucket and may get wasted. |
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This just gave you some idea on how to
start your design. It's up to you how you want to continue that.
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Materials and
Equipment:
List of material depends on
your final design. In general you will need some wood, some wires, a
generator, a light bulb and a socket. Additional material such as nails,
screws and wood glues depend on your design.
Where to buy?
You may purchase wood from some
hardware stores or home improvement stores or hobby stores.
Screw base 6 volts light bulb and
socket can also be purchased from hardware stores.
Bicycle generator is available at
bicycle stores and sport shops.
These material may also be ordered
online to MiniScience.com or klk.com
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Results of
Experiment (Observation):
Experiments are often
done in series. A series of experiments can be done by changing
one variable a different amount each time. A series of experiments
is made up of separate experimental "runs." During
each run you make a measurement of how much the variable affected
the system under study. For each run, a different amount of change
in the variable is used. This produces a different amount of
response in the system. You measure this response, or record
data, in a table for this purpose. This is considered "raw
data" since it has not been processed or interpreted yet.
When raw data gets processed mathematically, for example, it
becomes results. |
Calculations:
If you do any calculation for
your project, write your calculations in this section. |
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Summery
of Results:
Summarize what happened.
This can be in the form of a table of processed numerical data,
or graphs. It could also be a written statement of what occurred
during experiments.
It is from calculations using
recorded data that tables and graphs are made. Studying tables
and graphs, we can see trends that tell us how different variables
cause our observations. Based on these trends, we can draw conclusions
about the system under study. These conclusions help us confirm
or deny our original hypothesis. Often, mathematical equations
can be made from graphs. These equations allow us to predict
how a change will affect the system without the need to do additional
experiments. Advanced levels of experimental science rely heavily
on graphical and mathematical analysis of data. At this level,
science becomes even more interesting and powerful. |
Conclusion:
Using the trends in
your experimental data and your experimental observations, try
to answer your original questions. Is your hypothesis correct?
Now is the time to pull together what happened, and assess the
experiments you did. |
Related Questions
& Answers:
What you have learned
may allow you to answer other questions. Many questions are related.
Several new questions may have occurred to you while doing experiments.
You may now be able to understand or verify things that you discovered
when gathering information for the project. Questions lead to
more questions, which lead to additional hypothesis that need
to be tested. |
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Possible
Errors:
If you did not observe
anything different than what happened with your control, the
variable you changed may not affect the system you are investigating.
If you did not observe a consistent, reproducible trend in your
series of experimental runs there may be experimental errors
affecting your results. The first thing to check is how you are
making your measurements. Is the measurement method questionable
or unreliable? Maybe you are reading a scale incorrectly, or
maybe the measuring instrument is working erratically.
If you determine that experimental
errors are influencing your results, carefully rethink the design
of your experiments. Review each step of the procedure to find
sources of potential errors. If possible, have a scientist review
the procedure with you. Sometimes the designer of an experiment
can miss the obvious. |
References:
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Display water mill
does not produce electricity, however the design of water wheel
may be helpful for your project. Click
here to see how it is made. |
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Water mills are usually made in large
sizes, click
here to see a sample.
Many water mills are now restored
and converted to museums.
Some historical information about developing
wheels are available here.
See actual
design and drawing of a water mill.
Display water mill does not produce
electricity, however the design of water wheel may be helpful for your
project.
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