http://engineeringworks.tamu.edu/?p=208

Electric power. It’s blowin’ in the wind, in some unlikely places. We’ll check it out, today, on Engineering Works!

When we flip that switch, we expect the lights to come on. That doesn’t happen in more than 1,800 rural communities called colonias along the Texas-Mexico border. A group of engineers and high school students are changing that.

Colonia is the Spanish word for community or neighborhood. In Texas, colonias are unincorporated communities, usually along the border with Mexico. They’re pretty basic. Colonias usually have no running water or flush toilets. Gravel streets. No electricity.

This is where the engineers come in.

A group of engineers, experts in wind power, from the Texas Engineering Experiment Station, are working with high school students and teachers in Laredo, Texas, to electrify nearby colonias. Using wind turbine generators.

The engineers are teaching the students how to build small wind turbines that colonias residents will be able to use to generate electricity for their homes. Not a lot, but enough for some of the simple things we take for granted.

But that’s not all. In fact, it’s not even the most important part. As the students build the wind turbines, they’re writing down everything they do in a set of detailed instructions — do-it-yourself wind turbines. And they’re translating the directions into Spanish so that colonias residents will be able to build more wind turbines to electrify their own homes.

Our turbines are spinning and we’re out of here. See you next time.

EngineeringWorks! is made possible by Texas A&M Engineering and produced by KAMU FM in College Station. We’re on the World Wide Web, too. Visit us at engineeringworks.tamu.edu.
Heard this on the radio this morning and got my blood boiling.