Knowledge is not power, implementation is. And two schoolgirls from the Government Primary School in Puducherry’s Kalitheerthalkuppam village, are doing just that.
While it is common for most of us to scrunch our noses up in disgust at the sight and smell of drainage waters flowing through gutters, these Puducherry school girls have found a way to generate electricity from drainage water and have developed a micro power generator to facilitate the same.
The idea came to them when on a usual day, the students alongside the teachers of the school on their visit to the Puducherry Science Centre and Planetarium noticed drainage water flowing fast near the Kurunji Nagar Modern Park, in September.
It all came to T.Mithra, and K.Sharani Priya, students of Class V, how their teachers taught them fast flowing water could be used to generate electricity. ‘Fast flowing water is just water, then why not fast flowing drainage water?’ they thought.
They decided to revisit the same space alongside their teachers S.Indra and Priyadharshini in October to experiment, reported The Hindu.
Getting straight to work, the girls armed with masks and hand gloves, measured the dimensions of the drain and recorded the flow speed by throwing a piece of paper in the water and noting the seconds it took to travel 5 meters.
While the drain was 23 cm wide and 9 cm depth, the average speed of the water was about 30 km per hour. The girls then constructed a 3-inch radius turbine and bent each of its blades at 45 degrees to increase its rotation speed.
“The turbine was connected to a 100 rpm gear motor. When the turbine rotates one time, the copper coil inside the motor rotates for 100 times to produce electricity,” Sharani Priya told the publication.
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The girls also constructed an adjustable stand to half sink the turbine. It also aligns itself with the turbine to facilitate faster rotation. At its final stage, the equipment was mounted and installed on the platform.
They calculated and monitored the power generated by the motor at equal intervals from 6 in the morning to 10 in the night. Currently, the electricity generated by the engine is an average between 8v to 9v.
The girls proudly acclaim how this power is allowing them to charge cell phones, glow LED lights and even play the radio. Their teacher Ms Priyadharshini also added that the generated power generated could also be saved in the battery.
“We can produce power easily at a low cost even from the drainage water. Nothing is a waste unless we make a way to make it useful,” she told the publication.
The girls, as part of their pilot project, now aim to install a LED street light in Lawspet. We wish them all the luck! You go, girls!
Feature Image Credit: The Hindu
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