Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

I want to make an anemometer, but I feel like it would be sort of pointless to just make one and demonstrate it. How can I take it up a few notches? Should I test wind resistance? Charting the previous wind speeds with the anemometer? The project is due in 2 weeks, so I have some time, but I'll need to okay the rough sketch with my teacher first. Please help!


[Administrator note: Project link: https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... meter-work -- also see "Variations" at the bottom]

Hi - as written, this project does not really give you an absolute measurement of wind speed. It just lets you correlate your anemometer's RPM with a fan speed setting (low/medium/high). To improve the project, you could create a calibration curve for your anemometer so you could correlate its RPM with actual wind speed (e.g. in meters per second or miles per hour). This would require either a source that can generate wind at a known speed, or a separate digital anemometer that you could use to calibrate your handmade one: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=digital+anemometer