turbine up close on a windy day

i went down to the turbine today to record sound & video. a nice windy day. watching this with headphones will help give you a sense of the huge blades rushing past - i used binaural microphones to record the sound; they provide pretty realistic stereo separation:

the turbine is up and running!

the turbine was spinning away as of this morning. here is a short clip of the view from behind the art building:

turbine spinning

i went for a run today up on campus, and just as i came down the hill on the west side of campus the turbine started spinning up. it ran for a while; the last time i saw it it had stopped again. they get it up to speed by running it like a motor, then let it go. maybe they were running some tests?

so when's it gonna start spinning?

this morning I spoke with Slade Dezeler, Boldt Millwright General Foreman, and he said there is quite a bit more electrical work to be done in addition to some remaining mechanical work, retensioning bolts, etc. they hope to commission the turbine sometime next week - just in time for the beginning of the term!

video - of the slower variety

jonathan larson made this 10-minute highlight reel (not time lapse) of the wind turbine installation.

link

time lapse movie of the whole project

so here it is, the whole thing in one time lapse movie. i've posted two sizes; either way it's a big file (thanks to bob breid et al for increasing my web space quota). as with all of the movies, you can drag the little playback head to skip around the movie.

320x240 (8MB)		640x480 (23MB)