For my IoT Capstone I wanted to create a stepping platform that utilizes kinetic energy to charge a 3.7 volt lithium battery. Slightly similar to how the tech company Pavegen uses elector-magnetism to generate electricity.
Some early concepts consisted of using a 2 by 4 (wood or plastic) as a stepping platform attached to a gear lock that was hooked up to a power generator which sends current to a bridge rectifier which then charges a small battery.
Due to limited time, my mentors helped me come up with the concept of using a wind turbine to supply current to a charge controller that charges the battery. A fuel gauge is also included to measure voltage and battery power.
With a few more changes my project ended up as the photograph above.
Thanks to one one of my instructors Edward Ishman, he supplied me with parts from his Capstone that he worked on as a part of the 6th cohort since my project ended up being similar to his.
Originally I was planning on using only 1 power generator to charge the battery but it wasn't enough for the 1 spinning turbine to charge the battery so I ended up using an additional generator for the battery. Also I needed to the turbine to continuously spin to generate power so I also used two portable fans to keep it spinning.
Along with programming the device I also set up a dashboard on the Adafruit website to display the changes in voltage and battery percentage which is comes from a fuel gauge that is included with the device.
Luckily over time, as the generator kept spinning I was able to successfully charge the battery.
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