This year’s Scoraig wind turbine building workshop was a small group consisting of Jim, Audun and Dave. Michael Lawley on the right joined us for one day from Ecoinnovation in New Zealand. Here he is inspecting one of his early water turbines that is producing a steady 200 watts for a neighbour of mine.
Dave’s dog looks on as I explain the workings of the furling system. We did the workshop backwards by erecting a completed turbine on the first day. Then we moved into my new workshop and did some of the tasks involved in building one. Finally we assembled and tested a 3 metre machine using some of those parts.
MORE PAGES:
Yes it’s a good way to do it because it gives a good over-view of the design early on. During the course we made some parts for other turbines that were already there to see, and assembled a turbine that had already been built. It was interesting to do things in a different way, and we had to, since we were too few to build one completely from scratch in a week.
I am always amazed by how much the Otherpower crew can get done in a week. But I’m also learning that it can be quite educational to work toward modest goals and have more time to discuss what we are doing. That’s how the course went in Belgium in April.
Most of the courses that I have taught at over the last ten years have photo diaries or videos associated with them that can be useful for those who are learning to build wind turbines. Here is a page with links to these courses. http://www.scoraigwind.com/buildyo/past.html
As a teacher (now retired) I’d be interested in hearing how it went by doing the course “backwards”. I think that approach could have considerable merit.