General Information
Project week brief
The objective of this project week is to build a simple wind turbine and convert some of the wind energy into electrical energy. You will have to test different mini wind turbine designs to assess which one is the best to harvest energy in different wind conditions. It is a competition, the best wind turbine, the one harvesting the most energy for a specific wind condition that we will reveal near the end of the week, will win. The team members from the winning wind turbine will receive a prize.
Skills Mapping
For this project week, there are opportunities for you to evidence and claim the different skills listed below as long as you fulfil the requirements listed for each skill in the evidence framework:
Circuits and Instrumentation:
- Electronic test and measurement (A)
Programming and embedded systems:
- Programming in MATLAB (A)
Data analysis:
- Data analysis (A)
- Data visualisation (A)
Sustainability:
- Climate and sustainability literacy (K)
- Electronics enhancing sustainability (K)
Design and development:
- Problem solving (K)
Communication:
- Social Media communication (K)
Management:
- Effective project management (K)
- Effective teamwork (K)
You can only claim a skill that you have significantly participated in.
Group Size and Allocation
The groups are formed of 5 or 6 students.
You can find the groups allocation in Moodle, here: https://moodle.bath.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=60305§ion=7
Timeline
While you are free to use the lab throughout the entire week during lab opening hours, there are dedicated times for questions and testing your wind turbine in the wind tunnel, as shown below.
Testing the wind turbine in the wind tunnel - Data collection and analysis
Each group will have 3 opportunities to use the wind tunnel to test their wind turbine.
There are 9 possible mechanical combinations and multiple possible electronic combinations, as well as capacitor values.
You will have to decide which design to test in the wind tunnel and make decisions from the data collected.
From the measurement system, you will be given an .csv file containing the wind speed and the related voltage across the load on the breadboard.
You should use MATLAB to visualise the data collected. Then you should analyse the data to decide on the best wind turbine design.
The testing slots are shorter as the week advances:
- Tuesday testing slot: 20 min per group
- Wednesday testing slot: 10 min per group
- Thursday testing slot: 5 min per group
There are only 40 testing slots per day (Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday).
No testing on Friday, just the final competition. The final wind turbine design should be submitted by 10am on Friday.
You can use this link to book your three slots, please note that any additional slots booked will be cancelled. You cannot cancel any bookings you have made, but you are free to swap with other teams.
- Select the type of slot you want to book.
- Select the wind tunnel you want to use through the select staff option.
- Select the time slot that you wish to pick.
- Choose your group number.
- Submit booking.
Assessment Criteria
On the final day, the groups will be ranked based on the total power harvested in 30 seconds.
Final design
You should submit your final wind turbine, having chosen what you think will be the best combination of mechanical and electrical components, by Friday morning at 10am.
This will be tested with all the other team’s designs in the morning. There will be four sets of heats – one heat per wind tunnel.
The best turbine from each of the heats will go into the final.
In the final the turbines will be tested again on one single wind tunnel and the winner will be announced.
The team will win a prize.