Evaluation & Research of Community Wind Turbine Training Programme

1. Researcher: Ed Stiven Supervisor: Professor Tak Ming Chan 3.0 Results 1.0 Introduction As part of Engineers Without Borders Warwick, four students initiated a project to Tanzania. The project involved building a small scale wind turbine with a 7 day training programme to teach the local community the theory behind the wind turbine, the different components and how to maintain the wind turbine. As part of this project the training programme was evaluated in order to research and suggest ways at which it can be improved. In many international development projects the training and transfer of information to the community can be poor or non existent. This results in the community having no understanding of how to maintain or fix the technology they have resulting in the technology breaking. Results from the questionnaires were collated, inputted into excel to provide analysis of the results. The graph (fig 3) shows the relationship between lesson number and the average level of understanding of the class. 5 4 3 2 1 Evaluation & Research of Community Wind Turbine Training Programme Fig 3: Graph of average level of understanding against lesson number This project aimed to address this problem and provide information about the best tools and techniques that can be used for future international development training schemes. • At ‘1’ the level of understanding is very low at 2.6. Group meetings after the lesson 1 attributed this to two factors: • The lesson was an overview of the project. This meant there was a large amount of new information that the community members had to try to understand at one time. • The material covered was too in-depth and complicated, with unessential theory causing confusion. A very basic overview required to make the community feel like they have the potential to learn the material. • At ‘2’ the understanding level increased to 4.4. The group meeting after the lesson attributed this to simplification of the content. After the first it was clear that the material needed to be simplified and this was supported by the increase in understanding. • At ‘3’ the average level of understand stayed constant. Group meetings attributed this to new material being covered each day, with generators, tower & support, and electronics being covered. • At ‘4’ the level of understanding increased from 4.5 to 5.5. This lesson explained how the blades worked. This increase in understanding was attributed to further development in the building of the turbine meaning that the blades had been finished. This allowed visual use of the blades to explain the theory. With a language barrier visual aids were agreed to be very effective at increasing understanding. • At ‘5’ the average level of understanding gradually increases. Group meetings attributed this to reiteration of key points, ensuring that fundamental concepts were understood. 1 Fig 1: Ed Stiven teaching about wind turbine blades 2 2.0 Methodology Methods used involved collecting quantitative and qualitative data. After each lesson a short questionnaire was given to the community members to record their understanding and enjoyment (see Fig 2). The questionnaire was kept very basic as 3 more complex questions could be confusing, especially with a language barrier. Furthermore gaining a small amount of information each day rather than lots in one day was seen as 4 5 Fig 2: Post Lesson Questionnaire priority. After each lesson questionnaires were collected anonymously and results collated. The results were then discussed in a group meeting to understand what needed to be improved for the next day. The chairman of the wind cooperative the community had formed came to the meetings to represent the feelings of the community. This allowed the team to gain qualitative research as to the opinions of the community. This allowed the team to gain knowledge of what needed editing in the presentations to increase the level of understanding. 4.0 Conclusions • The conclusions reached for the evaluation and research showed three key outcomes: • The overview of information needs to be very basic to engage the community and motivate them. • Aligning construction of different parts of the turbine with the lessons in order to give visual teaching of how the components work is effective at increasing understanding. • Reiteration is essential to increase understanding.