User:Svinson00/Project1

Project Preference

 * 1) Wind Turbine 
 * 2) MakerBot PLA Material Characterization 
 * 3) Autonomous Power Wheel 

Problem Statement
Our group will be responsible for developing software and electronics for a pre-existing wind turbine. The goal of the project is to use an existing prototype to quantify and measure power generation, and demonstrate the benefits of recent technological advances of wind turbines. We will need to generate a CDIO Design Report upon completion.

Project Plan
During the next 4 weeks, we (our group) will design a functioning wind turbine that measures power output. During the first week, we will research and brainstorm ideas on how we can improve the design we currently have. The majority of coding will happen during the second and third weeks, with assembly and testing occurring during the third and fourth weeks.

Week 1 Narrative
During the past week, I've spent at least 4-6 hours researching prototypes for a wind turbine design that has the latest technology. Most modern wind turbines use the classic design, with three blades. New designs such as the wind lens allow the consumer to capture more wind energy compared to the traditional design of three blades. Most likely, we will use the past groups design due to accessibility and effectiveness. According to an article on TreeHugger, the coned design is safer for birds since there are no external elements to the wind turbine. The only part we absolutely need for our wind turbine project is an LCD screen. There is a LCD module on Amazon (20 characters by 4 lines) for only $12.79. We currently possess an Arduino micro-controller that will be used specifically for our group.

Week 2 Narrative
We spent the majority of Week 2 finalizing a design sketch so that we can start assembling all of the components, wiring the wind turbine, Arduino, and LCD screen and writing a code for the wind turbine. The most difficult part of the project so far is designing a sketch that would be readable to others not involved. I couldn't develop testing as my assigned task this week because we didn't have a design sketch. My planned ideas for testing/measuring the power generation of the wind turbine are using a can of compressed air, a leaf blower, hair dryer, etc. The most efficient idea is to use actual windspeed from the environment. Before testing, we need to develop a baseline to ensure that all data is accurate. We currently have the LCD module soldered to a 16-pin header supplied to us. As a group, we know how to code the Arduino to the LCD screen to power it, but the code from the wind turbine to the Arduino is challenging. We're trying to convert its raw data (such as wind speed/RPM) to something the Arduino can read. There's a code in files on Canvas, but we have to tinker with it to get to work. I've found websites online to help.

Week 3 Narrative
A great deal of work was done this week. On Tuesday, I assembled all of the breadboard and circuitry work. I continued tuning the breadboard by swapping out components such as the large 10K potentiometer for a much smaller one. On Wednesday and Thursday, I started to begin the coding for the LCD screen and the fan/wind turbine. The main challenge for the next week is to figure out an inexpensive way to configure the Arduino to read the voltage coming from the fan.

Design
To start building, we needed to have a design that would be detailed enough that anyone could build the design. I used the software program Fritzing to make these designs (breadboard and schematic). The initial design required some additional work such as removing the resistor on pin 15 on the LCD screen and substituting it with a red wire to indicate a positive wire. CDIO Design Report

Week 4 Narrative
During the final week, we attached the wind turbine to the functioning breadboard containing the LCD screen. We programmed the Arduino to read the fan's input from the A2 pin and convert the sensor value to a readable output voltage. From the voltage, we could convert the number to current, amperage, and wattage. We tested the fan's power generation using a leaf blower from 1, 5, 10, and 15 feet. The data can be found on our CDIO design report. We had problems with the sketch not verifying/compiling and the values on the LCD screen were not resetting to zero, but we think we fixed the problem.