Spring is finally here…we hope. It’s certainly starting to feel that way, but this has been one crazy and unpredictable season. One thing we have come to expect, regardless of the outdoor temperatures, has been the wind. This wind: Amazing, powerful…fun to play with! If you’re a kid, or a grown-up who lives or plays with kids, you know that kids and wind have a lot in common in the energy department. So it is only natural that we try to figure out ways to harness that energy and put it to good or just plain fun, use.
It is not new to have the intention to harness wind’s incredible energy toward making our human lives more efficient, with a bit more ease. What is new is that we now find it increasingly necessary to figure out ways in which we can generate power without the use of carbon-producing, not to mention increasingly expensive, fossil fuels mined from our weary planet.
With these lofty goals in mind (Okay, we also needed to create some fun for the kiddos on a particularly cold and blustery late spring afternoon) we set to making our own small windmills. More commonly known as pinwheels, these small gizmos are incredibly easy to make and dazzling to the eye when decorated and set to spin in the predictably blustery gales which seem to greet us daily here on the Palouse in the spring.
You will need:
~ 6” square piece of sturdy paper
~ Pencil with eraser
~ Straight pin
~ Scissors
Begin by coloring your paper (if white) with any sort of abstract, bright, multihued design. Place design face down. Draw one dot on each corner and in the center of your paper. Cut a straight line from each corner toward the center of your paper, being careful not to cut all the way through to the center of the square. Now make a small dot directly to the LEFT of each of the four cut lines. Next, fold the dotted corners into the center of the square, lining up the dots on top of each other. We found this to be easiest if the paper is laid flat on a table surface. Finally, a grown-up or big kid can push the straight pin through the corner dots, through the dot in the center of the square, and into the side of the pencil’s eraser.
Now you are ready to test your mini windmill. Blow into it, and adjust (tighten or loosen the center pin) as needed for it to spin freely. The fun (and educational) part is trying it outside, turning at various angles for maximum wind power, or testing it at differing heights to find out about “drag” closer to the ground versus higher wind speeds on top of a hill (the same reason windmills are usually on hilltops when possible for maximum power generation). We found this to be a highly enjoyable even exciting project for a variety of children and adults alike. The bigger kids helped with the cutting and pinning, while everyone had fun decorating and testing the gizmos in the wind.
Nancy’s Note: No teeth were harmed in the making of this project…we’re just waiting on the tooth fairy to blow in on a breeze.
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