Pico Turbine Educational Windmill Plans

At a glance..

This document will show you how to build PicoTurbine—a fully functioning, electricity-producing scale model of a Savonius wind turbine. It is an easy to build educational kit with Building instructions, Teacher’s guide, and Technical Notes for grade 5 through adult. For hobbyists, science fairs, schools, home schools, youth groups, and experimenters.

The details..

The PicoTurbine Windmill Plans and Experiments book provides detailed instructions on how to build your own fully functioning electricity-producing scale model of a Savonius wind turbine. This educational kit is suitable for anyone from grade 5 up to adults who are interested in renewable energy education or just want to experiment with building their own mini-wind turbines.

This easy-to-build project can be completed in about one hour if you have the kit or around 90 minutes without it. The materials required include magnets, cardboard, tape, wood screws, aluminum wire coils pre-wound (if using the kit), wooden dowel or pencil along with some other commonly available items that can be sourced locally. With some adult supervision children as young as ten years old can assemble this project making it perfect for youth groups such as Scouting Groups,YMCA classrooms and home schools.

Despite its small size - standing at only eight inches tall - PicoTurbine produces approximately one third of a watt power from direct-drive single-phase brushless permanent magnet alternator which has self-limiting over-speed protection design. It comes equipped with four ferrite magnets measuring half-inch wide by 1.75 inches long by three-eighths inch thick along with one bicolor LED light emitting diode having two leads and one mini-lamp rated at 1.5 volts/25 milliAmps.

In addition to providing step-by-step guidance on assembling PicoTurbine,the book also includes valuable information such as safety rules review before starting construction; alternative designs including weatherproof pico-turbines; high-power picoturbo options; types of wind turbines available in the market today along with advantages/disadvantages associated with each type; physics behind producing voltage via an alternator ;and rectification into DC.