The WindTamer

When an adventuresome IHS student ventures out of the school building to the turf field, he or she passes the WindTamer and solar-powered lights. I do not know how much energy the turbine actually harnesses, but it is cool nevertheless. How does the WindTamer work? The WindTamer turbines create two vacuums which suck air through the blades, and the blades rotate (creating rotational kinetic energy). One of the vacuums is behind the blades, and the other is behind the turbine. The blades used in the WindTamer are very light, but numerous to produce the optimal amount of energy. The light blades move with the slightest amount of wind; so the device never wastes wind. The WindTamer definitely did not waste any wind this past week with Hurricane Sandy in town! It delights me that the engineers of the WindTamer took the wonderful birds of Irondequoit into account. The shape of the WindTamer, with housed blades, is supposed to reduce the amount of birds which fly into the device. If any brainless birds still fly into the WindTamer, natural selection is simply taking its course.