PRODUCTS > STEM > POWER MIXER
See energy live. From the sky to the socket.
A working off grid power station for the school grounds. It harvests energy from a 100 W wind turbine and a 100 W solar panel, installed with it, stores it in a battery and gives it back to charge laptops, phones and 12 V kit. The display shows it arriving and leaving as it happens.
On the board
Five screens, and a question each one answers
The LED matrix cycles through five screens, each answering a different question about the day's energy.
How full?
Battery
Charge in store, coloured by source
How fast?
Power
A dial of the watts arriving this second
How much?
Generation
Everything harvested so far, source by source
Which day?
Trend
This week so far, a column for every day
Going out?
Output
What the plugged in kit is drawing
Coloured throughout to match the panel: wind solar energy going out
For children
Theirs to explore
- Touch it and the board wakes up.
- Touch again for the next screen.
- Hold it to simulate a bright, breezy day.
It stays awake for 20 minutes after the last touch, then sleeps.
For teachers
Plug in, and show them
65 W USB‑C for a laptop, USB‑A for a phone, and a 12 V socket for classroom kit. A 10 W LED strip light comes with it.
Wait for a cloud to cross the sun and watch the red share fall away while the blue takes over, live, in front of the class.
On any phone
Eight ways to read it
- Join the unit's own WiFi, POWER MIXER, from a phone, tablet or laptop. Nothing to install, no internet needed.
- The same energy read eight ways: the board drawn live, the flow through it, today, the last 30 days and the lifetime totals.
- Pages written for the class: today's energy counted in phone charges, kettles boiled and hours of light, and the CO₂ avoided against the UK grid.
On the web
Eight pages, on any phone or tablet
The panel in the grounds shows the energy live. The web pages go further: eight of them, written to be read by a class. This is where most of the teaching happens. Every page is drawn from the school's own weather, so the data is never the same twice and never belongs to anybody else.
Every page updates live while the rig is running, so a class watches the numbers move rather than reading yesterday's. Trend draws bar charts and line graphs of the school's own energy, which is the KS2 Maths outcome in the lesson plans. Like counts the same energy in bulbs, laptop chargers and phone charges. CO₂ sets it against UK grid electricity, explained for upper primary.
In the classroom
Science and Maths, taught off real numbers
Two lessons for each key stage and two long term projects come with the Power Mixer, written round what is on the display. The weather does the work, so no two lessons run on the same data, and the numbers belong to the school.
Key Stage 1
Where energy comes from
Powering Up!Watch the energy move on the display, and compare how fast each source fills the battery.
Sun or Wind?Visit across sunny, cloudy, windy and still days and record which source is winning on a picture chart.
Mapped toScience: identify and compare sources of energy; observe changes across the seasons and the weather that goes with them.
Key Stage 2
Reading the data
Energy DetectivesTake the week off the Trend screen and present it as bar charts and line graphs.
Power in ActionFollow the circuit from the source to the battery to the socket, on a rig that really stores what it harvests.
Mapped toScience: energy transfer; electrical circuits and energy storage.
Maths: interpret and present data using bar charts and line graphs.
Key Stage 3
Judging the system
Energy AccountingWork out what the rig really delivers over time, and what that says about renewable supply.
The Cost of EnergyCost a laptop, a bulb or a games console against what the rig harvested today, and ask what happens when demand beats supply.
Mapped toScience: investigate and evaluate real world energy sustainability.
Maths: interpret and analyse data sets using statistical tools.
Long term projects
Two that run for a term or a year
Both are for KS2 and KS3. Science: long term environmental effects on energy, and the external factors behind them. Maths: data collection, analysis and interpretation, and statistical comparison. Full plans, screens and post activity questions are in the Lesson Plans booklet, which comes with the rig.
Specification
STEM
- Pupils see energy being harvested and used in real time
- Five LED screens, each answering a different question about the day's energy
- Colour coded throughout, so the panel reads before the numbers do
- Two lessons for each key stage, mapped to Science and Maths from KS1 to KS3
- Two long term projects that run for a term or a year
- Eight web pages of live data, including bar charts and line graphs of the school's own energy
Construction
- Supplied and installed with a 100 W wind turbine and a 100 W solar panel, both part of the installation
- Central RGB LED matrix showing live system data across five screens
- Custom circuit boards measuring voltage, current and total output in real time
- 12 volt battery storage with visual charge representation
- 65 watt USB‑C, USB‑A and 12 volt DC output, with a 10 watt LED strip light supplied
- Automatic cut out if more than 100 watts is drawn from the output
- Its own WiFi network serving eight web pages, no internet required
- Two year warranty
Suitable for
- KS1, KS2 and KS3 curriculum support, with lesson plans supplied
- Science and Maths outcomes named against every lesson
- Delivered as a durable, permanently installed renewable energy visualisation system
- Part of the Eco Classroom Outdoor programme, delivered in partnership with The Hideout House Company
See energy live. From the sky to the socket.
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