Wind Power B/C

[MariaK]

Should we focus our blade assembly, to do better at the high power or the low power of the fan?

[arod129]

Hello. This is my first time doing this event and I have minimal outside help, so I was wondering what resources or designs or kits I could use to to make a wind turbine for competition? (Div C)

[retired1]

The points awarded for the low speed and the high speed are nearly identical. You should be looking for the best sum of the 2 speeds.
The fan(s) that the ES uses may not be the same as yours.
Don't forget that the test is 50% of the overall score.

Don't look at Ward Scientific at sonic.com wind power as it is only a very expensive test device.

The rules make it look like the prop blades are snug with the CD. You will get extremely low air flow over the prop if you do this.
Do a bunch of reading on line and the past event coverage at this site (WIKI)

As dumb as it looks, try a pinwheel for comparison.

[mzn]

What materials can be used to build the blades for the blade assembly?

[mzn]

For the study part of this event, do we have to know specifics about each, or is general fine?

[mzn]

retired1's post was very helpful in understanding how i will be scored

[samlan16]

What materials can be used to build the blades for the blade assembly?

Anything as long as it's not metal. Bear in mind that you cannot cut the CD when you're designing, though.

For the study part of this event, do we have to know specifics about each, or is general fine?

Since it's early in the season, I would say general stuff, but do get down to the specifics eventually.

[rosebiju123]

For the blade assembly i have looked at many kinds of propellors and rotors, but at this point i am leaning toward pinwheels even though it seemed very off to me. Now that I think about it won't pinwheels have much less drag than the other two?

[JimY]

Should we focus our blade assembly, to do better at the high power or the low power of the fan?

We test our designs at both fan speeds, since both will be used during competitions. We 're finding that some designs work well at high speed, but don't even turn at low speed (getting a full CD to turn is not easy compared to a partial CD in 2011. As far as voltages, with the exact same setup and compared to the 2011 voltage at high speed with our best design from back then, we're getting about 50% of the voltage on high and about 25% of the voltage on low with our best 2016 designs to this point.

[rschmitz]

Can anyone tell me how to find a load resistor for the testing apparatus? not sure why this is needed.
Also, my motor that I have has capacitors on it. should I remove them?