By implementing a Kinetic Roundabout on the new campus, this project captures the mechanical energy of children at play and transforms it into clean electricity, creating a fun, wind-turbine-inspired system that lowers the school's carbon footprint and contributes to a carbon-neutral campus.
Design Manifesto
When fossil fuels like coal,gas and oil are burned, they release large amounts of Co2, a greenhouse gas. These greenhouse gases float into the atmosphere trapping heat from the sun in the atmosphere this has already heated the earth at least 1 degree celsius more than what it was before global warming.
The kinetic roundabout is a spinning playground that kids can push and spin themselves around. I want to make one that generates energy to power our new school campus. There are already kinetic playgrounds all around the world such as the CERES Playground in Melbourne and we need one in our new campus.
Some energy will be lost in the Kinetic Roundabout in forms such as heat from the motor,friction between the gears and sound such as vibrating. Some of the ways we already use to generate sustainable energy include,solar panels on roofs, water wheels in streams, kinetic tiles in large cities and wind turbines.
A Kinetic roundabout will harvest kinetic energy from kids playing on it. As the top spins the motor will spin too converting kinetic energy into electricity. If the Kinetic roundabout was spun at a moderate speed for 1 hour it would produce 150 WH of energy. That's enough to power power 1 lightbulb for 4 hours.
The Problem
How might we design a kinetic playground roundabout that captures the energy of children at play to generate clean electricity and help the new campus achieve a carbon-neutral footprint?
Our Sustainable Solution
The project aim is to theoretically build and test a kinetic roundabout so that students can play on it and generate energy that can power the new school campus at Brown and Jolly.
If we implement a Kinetic Roundabout into the new campus, then kids would play on it and the Kinetic Roundabout would generate kinetic energy into electrical energy. When the top is turning it will power a motor underneath it.
The kinetic roundabout generates energy in this cycle, first it gets spun by kids playing on it in the playground.
Next, the motor spins magnets in copper coils. Then, the system transforms the kinetic energy from kids playing on it into electric energy. Finally, the electricity is transferred into a battery or sent straight into the school´s grid.
My kinetic roundabout will be successful because it is very similar to a small version of a wind turbine that is built horizontally into the ground. People already use wind turbines all over the world so mine will work because it's the same concept. The kinetic roundabout could potentially power a typical light bulb for 4 hours.