windHERE [An attachable wind turbine with telemetric data]

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  William Assembling the main box

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  Yusuf programming the arduino microcontroller to test the sensors

Inspiration

We wanted to take a step forward in renewable energy and pollution tracking to promote a clean air and healthier urban environment.

What it does

windHERE utilizes a rotational energy generated by a vertical-axis wind turbine layout. Additionally, the electricity generated by windHERE acts as a nodal system and measures various emissions such as Carbon Monoxide, Humidity, and Barometric Pressure. After collecting this data, it is connected to a website that provides real-time tracking and graphs.

How we built it

The wind turbine was created using both 3D-printers and woodcutter tools. Our prototype design consisted of a base that was created primarily by wood while the fan pole was made using a PVC pipe with the fan itself being made out of foam.

Here is an image of the original plan for the turbine

Challenges we ran into

When we constructed the standalone monitor unit, we had some measurement issues which expanded into clearance issues with the enclosure fitting the internal components. Ultimately we ended up cutting new front and back panels to fit all of the components.

For the main unit, we had an issue managing the cabling for all of our sensors and the Arduino, we resolved this by extending the wires and manipulated them into the proper spots with the extra space.

We had an issue connecting the serial output from the Arduino to the web server. It turned out to be that the USB port that we were using for the Arduino was non-functional.

The 3d printed parts suffered from issues with time constraints for accessing the 3d printer and some issues with post-print processing which required us to file certain parts of the prints in order to get everything to fit together properly.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We were able to have a working prototype. Even though the prototype has some issues and is partially non-functional, we feel like we were able to get all of the main concepts working individually and if we had just a bit more time and materials, we could have had a fully working model.

What we learned

Having 3 computing majors at an engineering hackathon may not be the best strategy to get things done, but it makes for a really fun time.

What's next for windHERE [An attachable wind turbine with telemetric data]

We will improve the production process and gather more engineers for the team for future hackathons.

Link to the powerpoint slides

Built With

• arduino
• javascript