Green Steam Turbine

The Question

The Green Steam Turbine—our Grade 10 capstone project—was born from a simple question: How can sunlight and scrap materials help power Egypt’s future?

With energy shortages and fossil fuel dependency looming large, our team set out to turn solar heat into electricity using nothing but ingenuity and recycled parts.

How It Works

1. We salvaged a giant lens from an old TV to focus sunlight onto a metal water tank
2. Boiling water into high-pressure steam
3. Steam shot through a tiny nozzle (think of a kettle whistle on steroids!)
4. Spinning a DC motor hooked to handmade wooden gears
5. The gears—crafted with a 30:6 teeth ratio—acted like a bicycle chain, multiplying the motor’s rotations
6. We stored the electricity in capacitors and even lit up an LED lamp to prove it worked

No fancy labs, just elbow grease and late-night tinkering.

My Role

I geeked out on steam physics, using equations like A₁v₁ = A₂v₂ to redesign the tank’s shape so steam could blast out faster without getting trapped. We also fine-tuned the gears to balance speed and torque, turning wobbly prototypes into a smooth, energy-churning machine.

The Bigger Picture

This wasn’t just a Capstone project. It was a wake-up call: sustainability isn’t about high-tech gadgets—it’s about reimagining what’s already around us.

Imagine villages in Egypt’s deserts using systems like this to power schools or clinics, all with sunlight and scrap. That’s the future we’re chasing.

Skills Developed

• Sustainable Prototyping
• Thermal Dynamics Optimization
• Energy Storage Systems
• Cross-functional Collaboration
• Team Leadership