Startsida
Cheap electricity from a little windmill
The blades and scaffolding are made of bamboo. The generator providing current is a simple motor taken from a washing machine. It weighs ten kilos, all told. The designers behind the little windmill – students Daniel Femerström and Johnny Johansson – had an impoverished Third World village in mind when they built it.
“We got the challenge from our teacher, Simon Schütte, in a course on product development a year ago. We thought the idea was exciting and we got hooked,” Johansson says.
The project soon overran its banks and swallowed up all their time. But now they have a working prototype, ready for field testing.
“There are plenty of microturbines, small wind power stations,” says Schütte, a teacher in machine construction. But generally they have electronics built in that don’t last long in warm, moist climates, and which are difficult to repair.
The idea with these windmills is that it should be easy to fix; the technology is open, clear, and easy to understand. Additionally, it’s both considerably lighter and cheaper than what we already have.”
If it’s windy, the windmill can provide a couple of kilowatt hours per day – enough to have a computer on for a few hours, or a couple of lamps on in the evening.
“In places where there is no electricity, a couple hours of access to a product can be a great improvement,” Femerström says.
Now they’re looking for subsidies to be able to test the windmill in the field. They hope to be able to do it through contacts in Bangladesh, India, or Tunisia.
Academic may festival
Research is no quick fix. And when it yields results, it is worth a real festival. Twelve professors, six honorary doctors - of which five are international researchers - and 56 PhD students were honoured at this year’s commencement ceremony.
New chairperson of Liu
Anna Ekström began as a chairperson for Saco’s students and she liked to make waves. Since then, educational
issues have stayed with her.
Student with power
Oskar Lyding, chairman of Consensus, went on a trip with the University Management to look at creative learning environments in Europe.
HEALTHY OLD AGE
Go a little hungry and take B12. Mats Hammar and Carl Johan Östgren, professors at the Faculty of Health Sciences, have mapped out the latest findings on how we can be healthy old people.
preferably "irregular"
The expression "illegal immigrant" is no longer used at the Associated Press news agency. Per Hansen, migration researcher at the Institute for Research on Migration Ethnicity and Society (REMESO), has long argued against the term.
zebra fish - new lab animal
Operations with animals for experimentation at Linköping University expand and gather in the Centre for Biomedical Resources (CBR). A new addition is 15,000 zebra fish.
Five minutes with ...
... Sofia Nyström, new Secretary General of ESREA, the European Society for Research on Education of Adults.
liu student at nasa
Martin Törnros is a media and technology student at Linköping University. He is doing his master's dissertation at NASA and is working on a tool that will visualise space weather.
The humanist day 2013
Bigger, more intensive, interactive and entertaining than ever. Tomfoolery, circus, stand up, music, art and science. The Humanist Day on 19 and 20 April will be taken over by the playful person.
Students for a greener university
Linköping University has the potential to become the most sustainable university in Sweden. This is the vision of Fen Wang, a former student at Linköping University's master’s programme in Science for Sustainable Development.
Field study in Kenya
Johanna Nilsson is one of 11 students teachers who recently did a field study in Kenya and arranged a conference on ways out of poverty.
Page responsible:
anna.nilsen@liu.se
Last updated: 2013-05-22
