Wind Mill @ Numaish Karachi, April 2015

The Hawai Chakki Project

Frere Hall, Karachi

Numaish Karachi was an exhibition of over two dozen installations which aimed to open up public spaces for cultural production. It was organized by the social awareness campaign, ‘I Am Karachi’ to promote science education and cultural activities. The first of four public exhibitions was held at Frere Hall in April, 2015.

Habib University‘s School of Science & Engineering’s faculty and students were responsible for a few of the installations at the exhibition. Among them was the ‘Hawaii Chakki’, or windmill, which harnesses wind energy to produce electrical energy.

 

Windmill prototype at Habib University’s Engineering Workshop
Windmill producing power to light up the LEDs.

The vertical design uses commonly available parts. An anemometer power bar attached to the windmill tells you how much wind speed strikes the blades of the mill. The electrical energy from the windmill powers the LED lights that are wrapped around the pole. The goal was to educate people about alternative energy sources that are environmentally friendly and can be produced endogenously.

The Wind Mill was designed by Engineer Zeeshan Nafees and a freshman student, Abdul Rehman, under the supervision of Dr. Anzar Khaliq using equipment in the Engineering Workshop at HU. The windmill was produced by using commonly available parts. A digital power bar to measure the wind speed was installed, designed by other HU students (Faraz Imran, Rabeea Saleem and Areeba Aziz Rajput) under the supervision of Dr. Oliver Faust. The blades were coated with fluorescent paint and the pole was wrapped with bright LED’s that were powered by the windmill.

Numaish Karachi was a huge success, attended by thousands. Read more articles about it on http://ow.ly/SmT6z.

Project Team:
Dr. Anzar Khaliq is an assistant professor in the School of Science and Engineering at Habib University, Karachi. He holds a Masters and a PhD in Nanotechnology from Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris, France. His research focuses on the development of next generation energy harvesting devices. He has presented at several international conferences and has been an invited speaker in Pakistan as well. All of his work has been published in ‘Journal of Physical Chemistry C‘. He holds a diploma in theatrical performance obtained from Tellem Chao, Paris and has worked as a radio jockey for nine years at Mast FM 103.

Dr. Oliver Faust has been actively involved in science, research and higher education since 2001. He has served various academic and private institutions, where he improved academic standards and pushed the boundaries of science to come up with innovative solutions to physical problems. Dr. Faust has joined Habib University after spending four years at Ngee Ann Polytechnic in Singapore. Dr. Faust’s research interests include formal and model-driven biomedical systems design, parallel systems, digital communications, and nonlinear and cognitive signal processing. He has published more than 50 papers in peer-reviewed journals and international conferences. Dr. Faust has also been the principal Investigator for the multi-standard radio system project.

Zeeshan Nafees is a design engineer with an interest in renewable energy and mechatronics (robotics). He has a BS from Sir Syed University of Engineering & Technology and ME from NED University of Engineering & Technology. He now works at Habib University and was the brains behind the mechanical and electronic design and fabrication of the different parts of the turbine in the windmill.

More about Numaish Karachi on Habib University’s online platforms