Exploring the science of pinwheels
Pinwheels are beautiful and simple structures that spin by means of wind energy. A traditional pinwheel spins when you blow on it or by a natural air current such as the wind. Have you ever noticed that there are mechanical structures that look like a pinwheel and have a purpose?
These pinwheel-looking structures each have a different purpose. A windmill uses wind power to rotate the blades and they convert that wind energy into rotational energy inside the mill to grind wheat grains. The water pump does a similar job but instead, it pumps natural water stored in the ground. The most popular structure today would be the wind turbine. We are now making use of wind to convert wind energy to electrical energy and the initial point would be the rotating pinwheel.
If you notice, each wheel has a different set of blades but all of them are positioned in a way that catch the wind. The wind will give them the energy to spin.
Let’s move on into today’s activity. We’re going to create a traditional pinwheel, and we’re going to use the pinwheel to power something else just like the ones above. We decided to do a mechanical Christmas decoration. In fact, in our creation, the pinwheel will make our star spin. The wind will spin the pinwheel and then the mechanics of our design will make the star spin too through a set of gears.
Give it a try and design your own pinwheel-powered machine. Be creative and think outside the box. We are going to let you know how we did ours but feel free to make your own changes to the design.
Get your materials ready! (suggested items)
How to do it!
Step 1 – making the pinwheel
Download the traditional pinwheel template from here and follow the instructions on it to complete this step.
Step 2 – preparing the machine base
Now let’s move on to prepare our machine. We started off by using a 25 by 45 cm cardboard base. This base will hold our machine. You can make yours however you like.
Step 3 – preparing the rotating parts
We have used gears to transfer the kinetic energy from the pinwheel to our star. Our pinwheel rotates a shaft made of kebab sticks which will rotate a cap. The cap will rotate another cap by means of a rubber band belt. The other rotating kebab stick will rotate a gear that eventually rotates another gear attached to the star.
Step 4
We built our structure mostly out of star columns. Straws where ideal since they are hollow and can be used to hold shafts in them. In our case the straw. We used 4 straws in all, two vertical which simply gave our machine some height and, the other two horizontal ones where used to house the shafts.
Step 5
Cardboard was very important for our creation since it is a very flexible material to use and manipulate. We used it to cut out gears, make platforms for our straw columns, and also we also used it to make our star.
Step 6
You can decorate the machine the way you want to. Use all kinds of decorations that you like.
Take it further!
Design you own kind of pinwheel by using your magnificent ideas. You only need to remember these three important points for making a pinwheel:
As long as these three points are kept in mind you can design any other kind of pinwheel not just the traditional. Perhaps a paper-fan pinwheel or a paper cup pinwheel. Test them out and see which one works best.
You can also test out different materials. Maybe foam board gears are much better than cardboard to reduce friction? Try it and let us know.
Can you design a pinwheel-powered invention? If yes, we’d love to check it out!
Show us what you’ve made! Take a photo of at least 4 of your favourite activities from Esplora’s Science Advent Calendar. Trust us, you’ll need them 😉
Share your creation with us on social media
by tagging us on social media @esploramalta #esploramalta #getcuriousgetinspired
