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Matthew Fornoff: "This is a Cumberland county 4-H workshop, they are doing lots of different
green energy related things. Our project specifically is this 4-H power of the wind program."
Al Beseler: "We had about 30 minutes, 4 sessions of 30 minutes in each session we had about
5-8 kids and we decided to make pinwheels. It is a very common arts and crafts type activity.
Then we allowed them to see exactly what a pinwheel can do. We had them hook up their
pinwheel to a multi meter. Showed them that they were creating electricity then after
that we had them hook them up to a music making machine and with the power that they generated
with their pinwheel, they were able to play a song. It was a lot of fun, a lot of hands
on arts and crafts stuff. We were also able to teach them how the windmill and wind turbine
can generate electricity."
Matthew Fornoff: "We are going to make a pinwheel. You are going to cut your pattern out and
then we will help you fold the corners in, we will stick a pin through it and put it
on a pencil. We have two patterns, you can choose whether you want to use this or this.
This is going to have four blades and this is going to have how many? three blades. We talk about engineering and how engineers
work, they design something and after they design it they go back and they look at it
and adjust things to make it better which is what you just did. You made something and
you realized it didn’t work as well as you wanted so you went back and changed
something so it would work a little bit better and if we had more time we could keep doing
that. Playing with it and tinkering with it and stuff like that. Now when the fan and
when the pinwheel spins, the motor inside is going to spin and it is going to make electricity
ok? And we can measure electricity on this. 1.3 volts of electricity 1.36 is what I saw,
did you see that? That is actually enough to light up a tiny little light bulb. We have
a light, a flashing light and a music player ok? So really you only need about 1 volt.
We are getting 2 volts with this so we aught some good power coming in here alright? Do
you guys hear that? We got a little music coming through here. It is getting louder.
Let’s try the light. Did you see a flash there? It is not very bright. You couldn’t
signal the boats at the lighthouse. You can see the other light. That is all coming from
his windmill here, his pinwheel. Hers is going really good too, probably as fast. If you
want to make electricity you have to get it going fast. Hers is going fast, his is going
fast. Hers is probably putting out a couple of volts too if we hooked it up to a meter."
Matthew Fornoff: "This we feel kind of gives them a good kind of foundation talking about
wind and energy which makes these things spin. Wind pushes a sail boat, it lifts a load,
it’s not just you build this thing and you have electricity. It is kind of giving
them a little bit of the engineering, and I don’t want to say the physics behind
it, but it kind of explains how it works and what exactly is happening. These younger kids,
I think it is more of our goal, which is building that foundation and hopefully the next time
they drive by the Mars Hill windfarm they look at it a little bit differently and they
have a better idea of what exactly is happening out there with the wind blowing and the wind
is spinning the blades."