The 6th grade Technology class is beginning their unit on 3D printing and design this trimester. The overarching goal is to design their own wind turbine blades. Students will print and test how well their designs capture wind energy from a large fan. They will do this several times, trying to improve the performance of their blades with each iteration.
This week they are building their test rigs using our Lego Renewable Energy sets. Piggybacking off of our data recording and analysis unit last trimester, they will record how much energy their turbines capture in terms of distance from the fan, as well distance from the fan’s center.
Using their data, the students will discover design tradeoffs. They’ll be able to compare performance with the weight and cost of materials. Students are eager to see which unit will demonstrate the biggest improvement in design over several iterations. It will be exciting to see the developments as they progress.
