Electromagnetic induction is the principle that current can be induced by changing the magnetic field through a current of wire. Electromagnetic induction and the principles surrounding it were used to determine how we would build our generator and fulfill our most important design specification: generating electricity.

Faraday's Law of Electromagnetic Induction states that the voltage produced is equivalent to the number of turns of wire times the change in electromagnetic flux divided by the change in time. Electromagnetic flux is equivalent to the magnetic field strength times the area of the coil exposed to the magnetic field.

This law guided our creation of the generator. We tried to maximize voltage by maximizing the number of turns of wire in each coil (about 300 turns per coil) and maximizing the magnetic field by increasing the strength of the magnets. We tried to decrease the amount of time by increasing the radius of the plates.

Ferromagnetic materials are materials that become magnetic in the presence of a magnetic field. Common examples include iron and steel. We used steel nuts in the center of our coils to further increase the magnetic field strength in the coils.

This is a way to determine which way current flows in a wire when exposed to an external magnetic field. It states that if you point your thumb in the direction of the current, the way that your fingers wrap indicates the direction of the magnetic field. We used this rule to determine the wiring of the coils - more below.

Lenz's Law is a way to determine which way the current will be induced in a coil of wires when exposed to a changing magnetic field. The law states that the magnetic field produced by the induced current will oppose the change in electromagnetic flux. This law guided how we wired the coils together in the generator. There is the same number of magnets as there are coils and the magnets have alternating poles to increase the magnetic flux in a single coil. This means that according to Lenz's Law and Maxwell's Right Hand Rule that the currents induced in each coil will oppose each other if the coils are all wired in the same direction. The solution to this issue is quite simple: we alternated the direction in which we wired the coils. Below is a drawn explanation.

Fusion 360 was used in the beginning of our project to model how the door mechanism would behave on the door.

TinkerCAD was used to create and test different circuits and devices before creating the final circuit.

Inventor was used to create the file to be printed on the 3D printer.

The 3D printer was used to the plates that the magnets would sit on.

The multimeter was used to test the voltage and current produced from the generator.

We used Schottky diodes for the full bridge rectifier. Schottky diodes are diodes with a very small voltage drop (.2V) . They allowed us to harvest the most electricity possible from our generator.

The spring scale was used to measure the amount of force needed to open the door at various speeds.

The decision matrix allowed us to pick the best design based on all of our design specs.

As stated before, schottky diodes have an incredibly low voltage drop of only .2V.

FBR allowed us to convert almost all of our energy into the usable DC form as compared to just a rectifier which would lose around half of the energy.

Documentation is extremely important to the engineering process. We used a combination of our engineering notebooks, a shared google folder, and a groupchat to keep eachother updated while we were apart and to ensure that we kept ourselves up to date with the documentaiton.

The Gantt Chart is a way our team kept our project organized.

The numbers of turns per coil was calculated based on the number of coils desired and the amount of wire available. This allowed for the most turns per coil, and thus the maximum voltage output.

Jeff Maki, an experienced mechanical engineer, provided guidance on all of the areas of the project and verified that our use of STEM principles was correct.

Jacob O'Brien, a mechanical engineer, verified that our use of STEM principles was correct for the circuit.

Mr. Weiland, our teacher, provided guidance primarily on the documentation and door mechanism portions of our project.

Ms. Ellingson, a physics teacher, provided guidance on the physics principles of the generator, such as Lenz's Law.