Lesson 2 - Geekservo: The Engine of Wind Power System Model
1.Engage: Let’s Explore Wind as Clean Energy!
Show students an image of windmills.
Have you ever seen those big “windmills” spinning on land or offshore? They’re called wind turbines—and they convert wind to electricity! Let’s find out how!”
Key Question
When you fly a kite, what does wind do? (It pushes! Similarly, wind pushes wind turbine blades to make them spin!)
How could the wind turbine capture the wind energy?
2. Explore: How Does Wind Turbine Capture Energy?
Wind pushes the turbine blades—then what? Let’s break down the energy conversion!
Wind turbines use wind to make electricity. Wind turns the propeller-like blades of a turbine around a rotor, which spins a generator, which generates electricity.
Let’s do a paper activity to explore how air pressure changes with airflow—this is exactly how wind turbine blades work! The uneven air pressure on the blade’s two sides makes it spin. Observe what happens when you blow between two papers to understand this principle.
Activity 1
Prepare two A4 papers for each group.
Guide students to hold 2 papers vertically (2-3cm gap) with both hands.
Blowing between two vertical papers and observe what happens.
Ask students to draw arrows that show how the paper and the blade move like the red arrow below.
High air speed between the papers → Low air pressure between them → The papers move closer
High wind speed on one side → Low pressure on that side → Uneven pressure causes spin.
In this lesson, we’ll build a wind turbine prototype to simulate a spinning wind turbine.
3. Engineer: Program to Turn the Wind Turbine On/Off
Show how to use the micro:bit to control the Geekservo with buttons (like a wind turbine’s “on/off switch”).
Connection diagram:
Coding Steps (Using MakeCode):
1.Open Microsoft MakeCode through the link below.
https://makecode.microbit.org/
2.Create a new project.
3.Go to Extensions tab to add the extension.
Enter the link: https://makecode.microbit.org/_VEK5oFFCvaqc
Click it for adding extension.
4.Go ExpansionBoard, drag initialize device into on start.
5.Drag on button A pressed block from Input.
6.Drag the Geekservo control block from ExpansionBoard as below:
7.Connect and upload.
Key Question:
Does the wind turbine keep spinning? Do we need a “stop” button?
4. Experience & Challenge: Code, Test, and improve!
Guiding question: When would a real wind turbine need to stop? (E.g., maintenance, strong winds.)
Let’s program a “wind switch”!
Activity 2
Students build the code as below, and download the code to their micro:bit.
Test it:
Press button A: Does the motor spin? Press button B: Does it stop?
Key Question
Do wind turbines spin at the same speed? Will wind strength affect their speed?
Challenge: Program the Geekservo speed to change with “wind strength”.
Activity 3
Make the Geekservo spin faster when “wind” (simulated by Buttons) is stronger.
Guiding steps:
Import the program which can be found in the attachment.
Test It!
Press button A or B several times: Does the motor spin faster/slower?
5. Elaborate: Wind Power’s Role in Saving the Planet
Key Question
Wind power is cool – but how much does it really help our planet?
Activity 4
Students work in pairs to do wind power research.
1.What percent of the world’s electricity comes from wind?
2.How much CO₂ does wind power save compared to coal?
3.How many homes can one wind turbine power?
Based on your research, discuss and conclude: Why is wind power helps climate?
Wrap Up: Today, we used micro:bit to control a Geekservo—just like real wind turbine engineers! Next lesson, we’ll add rotation sensor to make our model even smarter. Let’s keep building a greener planet!
Lessons2(microbit).zip 
