Windmill

What is a Windmill: A windmill moves with airflow or wind that pushes the blades to rotate.

Supplies:

1. Piece of paper (preferably thick square paper but normal printing paper will work as well!)

2. Push pin or toothpick

3. 1 bead

4. Straw

Directions: Skip 1 and 2 if you have a square paper

PLEASE USE CAUTION WITH PUSH PIN

1. If you have a rectangular piece of paper, turn it into a square by folding one corner over to the edge of the other side making the edges line up. It should look like a perfect trapezoid!

2. Cut out the excess rectangle after your fold

3. Fold your paper from corner to corner both ways (top left -> bottom right and top right -> bottom left)

4. Make a pencil mark about 1/3 of the way between the center of the paper to the corner (along the line that you folded; your mark should be closer to the center)

5. Cut along your folds till you reach your pencil mark; then stop

6. Look at your paper and notice it has 4 triangular shapes

7. Take the right corner for each of these triangles and bring them to the center

8. Poke a hole and connect all 4 corners to the center of the paper through the push pin

   1. Make sure that the hole is straight through the center of the paper where your crease lines cross

9. Push the push pin all the way through and place a bead after the pushpin

10. Connect the pushpin's remaining end to the straw by puncturing a whole in the straw

    1. If the push pin is too short use a toothpick

How Does a Windmill Work:

A windmill has rotating blades that catch the wind and spin. These blades are shaped in a way that allows them to capture as much wind as possible and turn it into as many rotations as possible. As the wind blows, a force is created that pushes against the blades, causing them to spin.

Windmills can also use generators. This is not in our project, but generators allow us to take the spinning of the blades and turn it into energy. By generating electricity we can use this to power our devices, even the one you are using right now to read this! All of this energy can come from the wind if we build enough windmills, wouldn't that be cool?!

Have fun!