The Tech Nut at IIT-G : Chapter 3

Now, the first hurdle of transport having being cleared, we know turned to the project. We wanted something new. A field which hadn’t been explored before. Not something like solar or wind energy. We wanted something totally different.

We had a problem though…we didn’t have too much time left. Because of all the transport bickering, we had lost quite a lot of time. We were supposed to send the topic we had chosen, along with travel details to IIT, by the 16th August.

We, at first, decided it had to be something to do with hydrogen. Hyrdogen fuel cells to be precise. A simple one, producing just enough electricity to light an LED, perhaps. The fact was that, after a little research, we found that we would need a ‘proton exchange membrane’ or PEM, which wasn’t exactly off-the-shelf stuff. So, we had to abandon the fuel cell topic.

Determined to show how hydrogen is a great way to conserve energy, we cooked up a little system of our own. We would obtain hydrogen, through electrolysis. We would then burn the hydrogen, to heat water. This water would then boil, turn to steam, which could be used to turn a turbine.

We later realised that electrolysis itself would use a lot of electricity, possibly more that what was being produced, so we decided to use a displacement reaction between zinc and sulphuric acid, and obtain hydrogen.

Zn + H₂SO₄ —> ZnSO₄ + H₂

For this, we needed a turbine and dynamo. For this, me and Karthick, had to go all the way to Chandni Chowk. We had to shell out 350 bucks for the assembly. We both experienced the Delhi Metro for the first time. I must that it was impressive. Really punctual, and mostly clean. The whole thing was up to international standards. No standing in serpentine queues, unless you were a poor soul who needed to buy a token.

We were poor souls.

I can’t wait for the Malviya Nagar station near my house to become operational.

Anyway, we needed to attach the turbine, which was really a lot like a CPU fan. It did not fit into the dynamo’s shaft, so we needed to widen the hole in the shaft. But, in the car, while Dad was driving, me and Karthick tested the turbine ourselves, on our tongues, and driving the shaft manually. A very bittersweet taste! Actually a really bitter acidic taste accompanied by the fact that at least something worked…

Next, we had to see if we could burn some hyrdogen gas in the chemistry lab. In school, we talked to the HoD or Head of Department of Chemistry, and she said it was unsafe, and was apprehensive at letting us carrying out the experiment. We had seen some videos on YouTube, but we weren’t allowed to test it ourselves. Even Dad said that hydrogen is a very volatile and dangerous gas. We needed to burn the hyrdogen to know if it could boil the water.

Also, I had my apprehensions about the steam being able to turn the turbine a long time, and had voiced them. The shaft was tough to turn manually, and even with the turbine attached, and the extra torque, it was still tough. I held the assembly under running water, and it wasn’t moving at all, except at certain angles. So we could assume that steam wouldn’t be able to turn it either.

This meant a rethink of strategy. Big time. There were several ways of reusing our turbine+dynamo setup. We could make a project on wind energy or hydroelectricity. Aishwarya did a bit of research and dug up a new kind of wind turbine called a maglev wind turbine, based on magnetic levitation to reduce friction on the shaft connecting the rotor blades to the motor.

It was pretty nascent technology, with a lot of advantages over standard wind turbines. Thing is, building one for a project wasn’t easy. So we decided to make a standard wind mill, and explain the concept of the maglev wind turbine at the same time.

I tried out the setup with my table fan and it wasn’t working. I got really depressed for a day, till something Karthick had said wandered into some part of my brain. He had recommended sticking 15 cm rulers on each of the blades. This would give more surface area for the wind to act upon. So, in the blazing sun, I walked, rather excited, to the local stationary shop, and bought 7 of them.

Stuck them using transparent tape, and tried it out.

It worked.

It’s a very enjoyable sense of satisfaction when you see your work paying off. I liked it.

‘Twas moving quite fast, and it was slightly unbalanced, so I decided to tape them better. Another hurdle cleared.

We were also supposed to make charts along. Aishwarya compiled a lot of info into a document, and we decided to make 4 charts, and a presentation on the laptop, that Ritu ma’am would be carrying. Thing is, we couldn’t afford to print the info at size 14. We decided size 80. And this meant a lot of pages. This caused us a few problems…

I went to the iLab on the last period on Monday, that’s 1st September. We did the resizing of the font, and I gave the print command. The LaserJet started spewing forth pages. What I didn’t know was that printing was being restricted now. People were not being allowed to print in bulk, like earlier. So, we ran into some trouble with Jitender sir, who threatened to remove the PavnaPC, and ban the Code Warriors from the iLab.

Yikes

A few moments later, Bani ma’am entered, and I explained her the problem. She said that we should apologize to sir. We did that, and also explained that we were unaware of the new rule in place. I think he calmed down a bit, and we might just stay on in the iLab. (I’ve always thought that iLab is just one typo away from iLav, which makes it seem like a high-tech toilet by Apple, or an iPod accessory for the loo! Heck…’v’ is right next to ‘b’ on a QWERTY keyboard!)

Anyway, we had printed out quite a few pages by then, and we took all of them to Aishwarya’s . We had decided to spend the day at her place, to make the charts. But first we also had to decorate our wind turbine. I had taken it apart the previous day, and we decided on putting it all together at her place. We used a lot of decorative glitter tape for that, apart from a lot of normal adhesive tape. That and buying the chart papers took up quite some time, and we had about 2 to 3 hours to make the charts. Having made one chart, we distributed the rest of the print outs so that each of us could make one chart each.

Karthick decided to take the turbine assembly home, and decorate it of sorts, make an outer casing for it, yada yada.

Now, 5th September was the big day.