Creating The StreamSpinner

Over the past month or so me and my classmates have been hard at work in Scimathics, working on the last big project of the year; Energy Capture. Now having just completed the project, its the time to take look back on it. Heading in to the project, our task was to create a device that captured natural energy using a provided hand-crank generator, and to then make a Kickstarter style video on it. 

Me and Marshall decided to partner up for one last hurrah and that turned out to be a good decision. I’m super happy with the way the project went, and our teamwork was great. Creating our energy capturing machine was a fun process that involved a lot of hands-on work which I think benefited us, especially as it is one of Marshall’s strengths. Once we had the device finished, testing it out at the local stream was a fun addition to the project. 

I then took the task of creating the video because I enjoy video editing and had some cool ideas in my head. All in all I’m super glad with the way it turned out and it was nice to get positive recognition for our hard work!

Curricular Competencies

In this project I contributed to finding solutions to problems at a local/global level through inquiry. I did this by highlighting current issues with energy capturing products, and also the worldwide problem of climate change. I implemented these ideas and concepts in to the machine and video in a way that displayed inquiry in to these problems.

I most certainly selected and used appropriate equipment, including digital technologies, to systematically and accurately collect and record data. This is evident in our product as we used various equipment such as a voltmeter and ammeter to collect data and calculate the power output of our device. We then used those findings to create equations and graphs using digital technology such as Desmos.

I also evaluated my methods and experimental conditions, including identifying sources l error or uncertainty, confounding variables, and possible alternative explanations and conclusions. I did this by making sure I understood the methods I was undertaking so that I was aware of the meaning and importance of the data I collected. In my video I also outlined alternative conclusions by highlighting non-ideal energy capturing situations as well as by graphing potential future cost savings.

Lastly, I considered ethical and environmental implications of my findings from investigations by including the environmental standards required for the machine to operate and how that connects to its usage and benefits. Also, with including the issue of climate change, the ethical benefits of using the machine were made note of.

Overall, I feel confident that I have displayed a thorough understanding of these competencies as I have learned a lot in this project both content-based and personal-based through inquiry, trial and error, send reflection.