Wind energy professionals punchy power filled cub night

Dr Charles Gamble, an electrical engineer from Community Power Solutions, and Karl Davis, a mechanical engineer from Empire Engineering, visited the 167th Westbury Baptist Cub Pack on Monday to share inspiration from their careers in driving forward renewable energy supply for the UK.

The cubs started off with a treasure hunt for images of different energy sources and a discussion in their Sixes:

• How do they work
• Are they renewable or non-renewable?
• Which type of energy is better?

Moving to a look inside a wind turbine, we were all enthralled by the scale and intricacy involved in wind engineering:

Charles followed up by sharing some of his history from seeing his desire to be a coal miner as a child transformed in to a career in renewable energy. He shared how wind turbines preform the magic alchemy of turning invisible wind that blows past our faces in to invisible electricity that powers our homes.

The cubs had a active kinesthetic break putting together three foot tall wind turbines in a Lego-style assembly. Followed by taking them outdoors to catch the wind and charge up the internal battery. With the battery charged, the turnine could be repurposed, with the help of a few extra parts, in to a small electric vehicle.

Karl wowed the cubs with a sense of the scale and challenges of offshore wind. Heads were twisting as he helped cubs imagine the size of the foundation pole, comparing its diameter to the length of the church hall in which we meet.

Thank you to Charles and Karl for inspiring our cubs and to cub leader, Chill (also known as George Jamison from Clarehill Associates), for organising the evening.

Next term we will be visiting the tallest community owned wind turbine, which is also the only turbine built in England in the last year!