Branksome X Team 1

Tuesday, March 10, 2015

Reflection

1. What did you enjoy most about the Branksome Exchange?

I enjoyed during the project the process to find out best blade between our thoughts. At the first, we met first, so this program gave us an opportunity to meet new friend from Canadian school, build relationship between Branksome Hall students. During the process, we didn't spoke Korean much, but more English, which gave me some times to improve my English and learn some vocabularies which are using in Physics. Also, I liked the process to giving the idea, which was brainstorming, because everyone gave their own ideas and we respected each other, which build our friendship more and how to connect the everyone's idea.

2. What were some challenges you and your group/team faced during the exchange?

Some challenges me and my group faced during the exchange was language. Because our team has 3 Koreans and 1 Canadian, there was no one to speak with Canadian if we are using Korean. We have realised that we should use English at least in the team, but due to the fact that our mother tongue is Korean, it was hard to speak English all the time. However, we overcame it by respecting each other and BHA girls tried to use more English to communicate each other, and finish our project enjoyable.

3. What is your opinion regarding wind power and renewable energy sources?

I think wind power is the most renewable energy and efficient energy source than the other renewable energies. there are various kinds of renewable energies, such as solar power and water. Wind power is from the nature, and it doesn't need much materials, but windmill. Windmill creates with 3 blades, because it is most efficient numbers of blade with cheep cost. This energy absolutely useful to Jeju island, where has lots of wind. If it develops more in the Korea, we can find the way to produce more electricity from wind power, which makes Korea to have more electricity. Korea recently needs much electricity than Korea produces because Korea has developed lots of technologies and electrical devices such as smart phones and television.

4. How could the Branksome Exchange be improved in the future?

In the future, I think more BH girls could come to our school. It was good opportunity to all of the grade 9 BHA girls went to Canada because it was time to learn the English, build friendship with more Canadians, and make some memories which I will hold forever. On the other hand, because BH was in vacation when exchange program held, only few of them came to our school, which cause some students have no buddy and less time to contact with them. I think exchange program should be held during the school day, not in holiday to build more friendship, or should make mandatory to both BHA and BH, even it held during the holiday.

Monday, March 9, 2015

Feedback

Welcome to Branksome X Team 1's blog! Please record any type of feedback to our presentation down below in the comments section. You are supposed to answer two questions below and are welcomed to record any type of feedback as well.

Describe one thing that our team did well. Explain your opinion.
Describe one thing that our team could improve. Explain your opinion.

Day 6 - Evaluation

During our investigation we did not have errors that much, but I believe if we had more research from various sources, the result could be more successful, and accurate. Our wind turbine looked quite different than other group’s design, and one of the big differences was that we had 6 blades, and not 3. At the first time when we had 3 blades, it did not worked out very well, and then one of the group member gave an idea that it might produce more energy if we have more blades, so when we tried with 6 blades the result was successful. We could improve our design by make longer, and thinner blades, because when we were researching, it said that longer, and thinner blades are easy to spin, so it will produce more energy.

Our hypothesis was right at some point, We assumed that the air foil shape is the best, and it will produce more energy if we have thinner blades, bigger number of the blades, and all the blades are balanced, it will produce more energy. We also thought that we should give more curves in the middle to catch more wind from the fan. If you see the data, #1 is the blade with the shape of the knife, which was our first draft, #2 is the blade which we used the laser cutter, and #3 is our team’s final model. As we made the blades thinner, balanced, change the order of the ribs, and increase the number of the blades, the result got better. which could proved that our part of the hypothesis were right. However, and air foil shape of the blades were not the best design. If I can change our hypothesis, I would say that the knife shape is the best, and the wind turbine produced most energy when the blades are thin, equal, ribs are focused on the middle, and make them as much as they can.

If we use wind turbine, it starts to produce wind energy first, and change that into electricity. After they turn it into electricity, they start to provide them in a specific area, and in that area they can use them in various ways. For example, street lights, provide them into citizens, and stores. I think our wind turbine is going to produce energy efficiently, but expensive than other teams. The reason is most group had 3 blades, but we had 6 blades. However, since our wind turbine’s result as quite successful, I think it will help Jeju citizens to use electricity more freely.

Day 6 - Overall Reflection

As you work through the design cycle you should be identifying specification that your final turbine design must neat. What are some specification that your team has thus far to decide it to include the turbine design? Justify two specifications

1) the angle that helps produce the most power is 15’. We measured each blade with the protractor to make sure each was even.

2) When we had shorter blades, and more of them and it weighed the same amount as larger blades, and only three of them. This helped the turbine catch more wind to produce more energy.

This project asks you to collaborate in a team to solve a problem. Tomorrow you will pitch your design to an audience. What are you excited about? What are you wondering about? How will you combine your strengths to be successful?

We are excited to learn about other team’s design and we are wondering about how are we going to present and appeal our wind turbine project. I think our group’s turbine has a lot of strengths, because when we were designing the turbine we tried a lot of things, so our wind turbine is quite different than other team’s wind turbine, and interesting. First difference is that we have 6 blades on our wind turbine, and not 3. We tried 3 blades, but it did not work out very well, and one of the group member gave an idea to tried with 6 blades, and the result showed quite successful. Also to improve more, we gave some changes with the arrange of the ribs, short one in the middle, and two middle ribs on the outside of the blades to catch more wind in the middle side of the blades. Moreover, we shortened the height of the blades, by cutting dowels out, because we thought it was too long to catch all the winds from the fan. After these changes, the data showed that it improved much more.

Sunday, March 8, 2015

Day 5 - Conclusion

Through 5 days with Canadian girls from Branksome Hall Canada, we created our own windmill with different angles, curves, sizes, lengths, and shapes of the blade. Our aim was to produce maximum power from the turbine, as efficiently as possible. Therefore, our question was: How do the angle, curve, size, length, and shape of the blade affect the amount of energy produced in our windmill? By our researches on day 1, we made a hypothesis that small angles, curves on the blade, small sizes and short length, and airfoil shaped blades will produce the most energy and power.

Independent variables are curve, length, shape, and angle of the blades, and dependent variables is power and total energy generated by our turbine. Independent variables and dependent variables are completely related, because as independent variable changes, dependent variables increase or decrease. The relationship can explained by the data (graph) which we collected from the experiment. On the first design, which included airfoil shape, little curved, short, and 15 degrees, produced least power and energy. Next one was little bit more knife shape, little curved, short, and 15 degrees, but produced second least power and energy. Finally, we changed the numbers of the blades, little curved, short, 15 degrees, and completely knife shaped, and it was the model which produced most power and energy. These data shows as independent variables change, dependent variables change: increase or decrease.

For the final design on first three designs, we changed the shape of the blades and numbers of the blades, which finally chosen to cutter blade and 6 blades for wind turbine. Then, we modified the final model to find the model which produces more power and energy. Thus, we put the short rib, which is more curved than other ribs, on the middle of the blade, cut the dowls, and change the degrees from 15 to 20, which produced most energy and power between previous models.

On our final design, we put blades on 20 degrees, short dowls (sticks) to make blades place closer to the middle to meet winds straightly, stick the rib on the blade to make curves on the blade, use cutter blade (knife shaped blade), short blades, and 6 blades to turn faster. This design maximized the electrical energy generated.