1. Problem/Need
Team Turbine is addressing the need for wireless energy by creating the WiET system, this system will completely eliminate the wires intended for powering devices. By designing a turbine system that will be installed in homes and corporate buildings; the system will reduce the amount of wasted energy energy within the plumbing and drainage spouts (such as the toilet flushing, running water, rain gutters). The WiET system is Wireless Energy Transfer, it functions similar to radio waves but instead of transferring sound it transfers energy. We’re trying to make it so buildings can be electrically boosted by the WiET system, and possibly become fully off grid and independent.
2. Current Solutions
Nikola Tesla has created many different versions of wireless energy like the wardenclyffe tower, but was never able to complete his objective because of lack in funding. Tesla wanted to make energy free by putting it into a the ionosphere. In recent times there are many instructions online for creating your own custom mini wireless charger. there are future plans for creating stronger and more powerful wireless energy. Rather than trying to send a global energy bubble across the planet we hope to use the concept to create a smaller but still powerful system of wireless energy that can be installed in the average home or business to gather energy from turbines and wireless transmission.
3. Your Idea
We plan on creating a water turbine system that involves placing a water turbine inside water pipes and rain gutters that will collect energy and go into a storage unit battery that will emit the energy wirelessly. This will put off different electric frequencies much like radios have, making it possible for you to walk into a house that has this system and be able to charge your phone, Ipad, computer, etc. This water turbine system can be placed anywhere with running water such as huge office buildings, skyscrapers, and sewage systems. This solution to the wireless energy transfer that we are working on differs from what has been done before. For example, the Nokia wireless phone charger allows the user to place their phone on top of this device and charge their phone without the use of a cord phone charger. The difference between the wireless phone charger and our idea is that our energy transmission system will create a dome like cage around the users house making it accessible to charge your phone at any time anywhere, not just in one place on one certain surface.
4. First Idea Translation
We will be recreating the experiment above to learn how wireless energy works. we will run tests to find how much power we can send/receive and test the different dangers and obstructions of the transmission, by testing in different conditions that the wireless energy would be most vulnerable we can find limits to where we can place the turbine and to what extent we can use the power for or through. Being able to document the problems we encounter we will be able to fix and enhance our final product.
http://www.instructables.com/id/Wireless-Power-Transmission-Over-Short-Distances-U/
5. What Will We Learn
Though our experiments we will learn how far (distance) we are able to power objects, what the energy is able to transmit power through and what dangers the device will present to living mammals like humans and dogs to a hamster or the botany of the house and yard.
Our group will need to gather information on the amount of pressure in the average house or retail building so we can find the most optimal location for the turbine. The wireless energy will need in depth research on finding new systems to create stronger and safer wireless energy transfer.
6. ArtScience
Our idea deals in lots of sciences such as hydroelectric conversion, electrical engineering, computer sciences, electromagnetism, and many more. What we currently need more of is art. This will come later in the design of our turbines and the aesthetic design of our system as it is being created. We will need to be well versed in all of the previously stated sciences and aesthetic design. The reason aesthetic design is important is create a of sense of beauty and simplicity consumers.
7. Who Can Help
Some local leaders that have informed the development of our idea have been certain entrepreneurs that take time out of their day to come talk to all of the ArtScience groups, such as Chad and Scott, a few students from the Minnesota College of Design and three business workers from Initio31. Scott brought in new insight about the Nokia phone wireless phone charger because he charges his phone with it. This is a wireless energy transfer much like what our group wants to work on. Chad was very pleased to hear that we are working with water turbines and batteries and referred us to some of his close friends that lend us some useful materials such as a water turbine or a battery to help us move forward with our upcoming experiment. He also gave us insight as to where we are going to place the actual turbine in the pipe because of what is in gray water. We also got into contact with some students at the Minnesota College of Design and told them what we were working on. All of them were very interested in our ideas and were happy to help with making our prototypes. One of the students, Chris, got us into thinking about the different sizes and scales that we are going to need to figure out before we start experimenting. From that, we decided to make a small scale house with that will show the water turbine pipe system on the side of the house to show viewers what we plan on making on a bigger scale. We talked with Sarah and Jonathan about where else we could put our turbines. Jonathan made a comment about what the turbines will be running on when there is no one home to use the water during the day and from that we stemmed our idea to putting our water turbine system anywhere that has running water. Another student we had a conversation with about our idea was Tom. Tom talked to us about scaling and sizes as well. He told us that if we were to make a prototype he would be more than happy to help us put the whole thing together. The students at the Minnesota College of Design were very surprised that teenagers out age are working on such problems like these. They also reminded us to keep drawing and sketching and to never throw any of our sketches away even if they’re bad. We also met with three business workers from Initio31 which is a full service marketing, branding and advertising agency focused on bottom-line business results. We met with Zoe and told her all about our idea and what we plan to do. She was very interested as well and talked to us about the different frequencies that we plan on emitting from the battery storage unit. We also talked about what our prototype was going to look like with the little mini house and the water turbine pipe system on the side of it.