As a Christmas present for Brittany Wright this year I decided I was going to aid her in the construction of a handmade wind turbine. She is a mechanical engineer with a focus on fluid dynamics and thermodynamics at Tufts University hoping to be a graduate student at The University of Edinburgh focusing on marine energy including offshore wind. She also took an advanced mechanical engineering class last semester at Tufts focusing on Wind Energy and I figured it was about time that she gets to build a turbine. I have a pretty functional machine and wood shop in my garage thanks to my brother Stephen MacLellan and my parents so getting started on blade construction wasn’t too hard, except for the fact that I had to quickly fully grasp the basics of visualizing a twisted airfoil in a 2×6.
Stephen was able to help me along and after visiting a few sites on the subject of handmade wind turbine blades, I got the idea. Some very helpful sites for me in the beginning were Hugh Piggot’s Scoraig Wind Energy, WindStuff.org, and the Renewable Energy UK Site. My first blade is really more of a test blade than anything useful and is a 24 inch blade made out of a 2×6 of pine. I plan on making two more anyways so I can build a small scale model including hub, generator and alternator as a base to build larger 6 or 10 foot turbines.
I’m an eighteen year old so I am still exceedingly optimistic and eager and as I was building the first blade I had the thought that I could make renewable energy my summer job and full time hobby. A quick glimpse at my Google Reader feeds reveals an obvious obsession with the environment, energy, and technology. For Christmas this year I even asked for a roll of flexible solar panels…
After a quick Google Chat with Brittany, I got her excited about the proposition and my mind started racing with ideas. Both of us know a good number of people without jobs in a pretty diverse range of fields so finding help shouldn’t be too hard.
Here’s my plan:
Brittany and me, Co-Presidents
Brittany in charge of Systems and Design
Ian in charge of Marketing and Ideas
Stephen in charge of Construction Division
L.A. Chief Financial Officer
Piers in charge of Sneakiness
Chris in charge of Accounting
Mike in charge of Legal issues
Matt general science help…
Stephen constructing our first test blades
