Hands-on Science and

Engineering at Pasadena

Public Library

Oct. 15, 2014

Energy cannot be created or

destroyed; it can only be converted

from one form to another.

Build a wind-powered water pump!

The shape and size of a wind

turbine, number of blades, and

angle of the blades will all vary

the amount of energy it is able

to make. Your design will

convert rotational (or circular)

movement of your wind turbine

and transfer it into linear

reciprocating (or up and down)

motion using a crank.

(from Curiosity Machine

website:

https://www.curiositymachine.o

rg/challenges/54/)

*Windpumps were first used by Muslims in the Middle East and Central Asia in the 9th century

*The first known instance of using wind to power a machine was by the Greek inventor Hero of Alexandria in the 1st century? He invented a wind powered organ with a wind wheel that powered a piston and forced air into pipes (see left).

*Dutch windmills were not only about making flour. Many windmills also pumped water out of the ground, which was necessary because most of the Netherlands is below sea level.

p. 17, Wind

Power by Ian

Graham,

published by

Raintree

Steck-

Vaughn

Publishers

Daniel Halladay, who in 1854 invented the wind pump that was used in farms across America for almost a century.

Halladay faced numerous challenges. How to make his windmill simpler? Easier to run? Affordable?

He came up with one clever idea after another. He abandoned the idea of sails in favor of vanes.

He fabricated a “rudder”—a tail, so to speak. As the wind shifted direction, it kept the mill pointed right into it.

Before long he conceived a governor that adjusted the mill’s speed automatically—no danger of spinning out of control and destroying itself. He made it more and more efficient. So good that the windmill could run itself.

And he perfected the pump that would suck up the water, and how the energy should be transferred from the spinning vanes at the top down to the pump.

From “Daniel Halladay, the Remarkable Connecticut Inventor I’ll Bet You Never Heard Of,” by John Guy LaPlante. http://valleynewsnow.com/2011/09/daniel-halladay-the-remarkable-connecticut-inventor-i%E2%80%99ll-bet-you-never-heard-of/

I didn’t

want to

use

cardboard

because

it’s tough

to cut. But

foam…

doesn’t

work.