We used your PicoTurbine windmill kits for our department’s first summer camp this past July and are very pleased with the results!
We accepted 22 high school students to visit our department and campus for a week for our “Unplugged” Camp. They had a few engineering projects they worked on to introduce them to the basics of electrical and computer engineering.
The students enjoyed working on the windmill turbines, and even saw the AC signal output using our oscilloscopes. One student noticed that you can pick out the different colors of the bicolor LED by looking through one side of the turbine vanes as it is spinning (showing the correlation between the spinning of the magnets and the direction of current). They also learned how to solder the LED leads (none of them had any soldering experience).
Our department is committed to furthering the research and knowledge devoted to renewable and alternate energy sources, as demonstrated by our professors’ research areas. Given the recent push in our country for more independent as well as renewable sources of energy, we felt this was a great way to introduce young students to this technology that will become more pervasive in the near future.
Your kits have been a great tool for demonstrating wind energy in our camp! We look forward to using your windmill kits next year, and maybe even trying some of the other kits you provide.
Ian Horbaczewski Graduate Student/Recruiting Coordinator
Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering
Texas A&M University College Station, TX
