Wind Power C

[Frogger4907]

You can move it X, Y, and Z... btw Z is the vertical plane and Y is the distance from the fan.

[2win]

Question (states in two days)

Does adding weight to the center of my cd help?

[illusionist]

Honestly, I don't understand what your thinking is as to why it would help. But I may be COMPLETELY wrong! If you had to add mass any where (for example to increase the momentum of the blade), it would be at the tips. Adding it to the middle would not do much except for increase the mass. Since it is so close to the center of rotation, I don't think it would have a great effect on momentum. Once again, I may be wrong.

[illusionist]

Sorry for the double-post, but I had states last weekend, and the test was HORRIBLE. I have never felt so unprepared in my life! We had a decent binder with formulas, but still it felt a bit over whelming. A note to those with states yet to come: Pace yourselves. The time runs out very quickly.

[2win]

Dangit then. Ah, well... i'll test it tomorrow and see...

[illusionist]

Why did you think it would benefit? I'm not saying its bad, but I just want to know what you thought.

[2win]

Ah, haha, that, I would have to ask my partner. (He's a junior and I'm just a freshman). I think it had something to do with momentum. My dad said the same thing, like, even though it'll be kinda hard to get it to start, once it gets to full speed, it's harder to stop (which i think is what you want because of the resistors?) Haha, not exactly sure...

[eeldj123]

Ok, something strange at our tournaments this year. All the judges at the tournaments this year seem to think that the rules when they say that the contestants can alter the posistion, it only means on an X and Y plane, and the CD mount is a set distance away from the fan. I had a bit of a problem with this and have managed to have them redo the blade test at every competition this has happened in. Has anyone else seen something like this. Does posistion imply X, Y, and Z? Or only X and Y?

x, y, and z. From what I've seen, the cd motor is attached to a clamp so that it would follow this kind of setup:

Code: Select all

  |    -------           
  0 [motor]  |
  |    -------           

So from this, the complete set-up would look like thing:

Code: Select all

|--o

In which the | is the pole that connects the clamp and the platform at the bottom and the "o" is the turbine itself, which should then be able to be moved in all directions.

Ah, haha, that, I would have to ask my partner. (He's a junior and I'm just a freshman). I think it had something to do with momentum. My dad said the same thing, like, even though it'll be kinda hard to get it to start, once it gets to full speed, it's harder to stop (which i think is what you want because of the resistors?) Haha, not exactly sure...

Since I focused more on the blade design itself, I'd have to say that the building part of the event is, to an extent, more empirical then theoretical. What happened to me a few weeks before state was that I built two designs that were exactly the same except for angling, and the difference between those two were about ~100 mv without a resistor (though the difference was negligible with a resistor). A week later the exact same design I built had a slightly different angle and was getting ~400 more than the better of the two previous designs (~200 more with a load resistor).

Do remember that you're allowed one tap to get the blades moving, though I've never actually had to use that tap at competition.

[Frogger4907]

You want a very minuscule angle on the outside, because it has to spin faster, this will eliminate drag, but a higher pitch on the inside.

[2win]

States tomorrow... hehe... ummm, so i tested my thing today, and tried connecting the 10ohm resistor in parallel circut, but results didn't change. D: whaaaaat??? i mean, i reached 4.2V without the resistor, but couldn't see what it could do WITH the resistor. last minute help please?