![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
Shop Class; Tuesday, First Period [11/16].
Tuesday, November 16th, 2021 04:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
special_rabbit"Morning, everyone," Amaya grinned a little as she nodded, greeting the class. "Good to see you back to your normal selves if you found yourself all wee and tiny last weekend; if not, well, glad to see you're still yourselves, anyway. We might have had an interesting class on our hands otherwise, but, since everything looks in order, we're going to tackle something that might come in handy in the winter months around here, when the snow gets a little bit...we'll say forceful, and also not a bad skill for other blackouts and situations where you might be yearning for a bit of power, so to speak.
"Now, one of the tricks about a school as diverse as this is that we've got people from all sorts of places here, so electricity might be old hat for some of you and bright and shiny and new for some of the others, but I think this project is a good one all across the board. It was inspired by one of those school trips we took a while back, where I got to learn all about thermoelectric generators and bring that knowledge back here to this very class! We'll be building them out of just a few parts, a tub of water, and some candles.
"What we're essentially doing, then," Amaya continued with her explainion, because science!, "is creating energy based on the temperature difference between the heat from candle flame and the cool water in the small tubs we'll be using. This should be powerful enough to charge a phone or perhaps a few other small but useful devices in an emergency. And I'm sure some of you could easily modify this to create more power to help energize something with a bit more oomph, too."
So the students would find a handout of instructions on their workstations as well as the materials they needed, as Amaya led them through the steps: starting with a handful of thermoelectric plates, which would generate electricity as it heated up one side while cooling down the other, and sticking them to the bottom of a container for the cold water. They'd be using bread tins, because they really did work pretty well, using thermoconductive glue and then saudering the black and red wires that stick out from the plates together, closing the circuit, and protecting the wires from creating a short circuit against the metal pan with some electrical tape. Then on to hooking up a voltage regulator to stabilize the energy passing through the plates, which would also serve as the plug-in point for their devices. They'd be mounting it over the tin with a strip of aluminium to keep it out of the water. Place the strip, hook up the wires to the regulator, another bit of aluminium over the plates, and onto the stand! With more aluminium!
And now to test it out! Line up the candles underneath, pour some cold water into the tin, let the thing get juiced up, and give it a try!
"Now, as the water warms up, it'll need to be refreshed, because the difference in temperature is key to what creates the power," Amaya offered as she finished up the demonstration. "Using snow or ice is actually more effective because of this...so next blizzard that sweeps in and knocks out the power, you should be all set! And if you make a big enough one, I'll bet you could even make it snowman proof!"
Because, yes, that could be important!
"So, let me know if there's any questions, and, if not, let's get to work!"
"Now, one of the tricks about a school as diverse as this is that we've got people from all sorts of places here, so electricity might be old hat for some of you and bright and shiny and new for some of the others, but I think this project is a good one all across the board. It was inspired by one of those school trips we took a while back, where I got to learn all about thermoelectric generators and bring that knowledge back here to this very class! We'll be building them out of just a few parts, a tub of water, and some candles.
"What we're essentially doing, then," Amaya continued with her explainion, because science!, "is creating energy based on the temperature difference between the heat from candle flame and the cool water in the small tubs we'll be using. This should be powerful enough to charge a phone or perhaps a few other small but useful devices in an emergency. And I'm sure some of you could easily modify this to create more power to help energize something with a bit more oomph, too."
So the students would find a handout of instructions on their workstations as well as the materials they needed, as Amaya led them through the steps: starting with a handful of thermoelectric plates, which would generate electricity as it heated up one side while cooling down the other, and sticking them to the bottom of a container for the cold water. They'd be using bread tins, because they really did work pretty well, using thermoconductive glue and then saudering the black and red wires that stick out from the plates together, closing the circuit, and protecting the wires from creating a short circuit against the metal pan with some electrical tape. Then on to hooking up a voltage regulator to stabilize the energy passing through the plates, which would also serve as the plug-in point for their devices. They'd be mounting it over the tin with a strip of aluminium to keep it out of the water. Place the strip, hook up the wires to the regulator, another bit of aluminium over the plates, and onto the stand! With more aluminium!
And now to test it out! Line up the candles underneath, pour some cold water into the tin, let the thing get juiced up, and give it a try!
"Now, as the water warms up, it'll need to be refreshed, because the difference in temperature is key to what creates the power," Amaya offered as she finished up the demonstration. "Using snow or ice is actually more effective because of this...so next blizzard that sweeps in and knocks out the power, you should be all set! And if you make a big enough one, I'll bet you could even make it snowman proof!"
Because, yes, that could be important!
"So, let me know if there's any questions, and, if not, let's get to work!"