William didn’t have money to purchase materials, so he searched through a scrapyard and gathered the parts he needed. He studied textbooks at the library, figuring out how to fit everything together.
The final piece of the puzzle was something called a bicycle dynamo. You attach this device to a bike wheel, and it converts energy from the spinning wheel into electricity.
On William’s windmill, the dynamo would be hooked up to his father’s old bicycle. The bicycle would be bolted to the top of a wooden tower. It would also be connected to the windmill’s long plastic blades. When the wind spun the blades, the bicycle’s wheel would start spinning, and the dynamo would produce electricity.
At least, that was the idea—but would it actually work?
As he stood at the top of his windmill that day, William wasn’t certain. Then the bulb flickered—followed by a burst of light.
“Look!” someone shouted. “He’s made light!”
Over the next few months, William’s family was able to fill their home with electric lights.
And once the news spread about the young inventor, William was invited to prestigious science conferences, where he met scientists from around the world. He was also offered the opportunity to go back to school.
Later William constructed a larger windmill connected to a solar-powered pump, which piped water to his family’s farm and garden. The family would no longer have to depend on rain to grow their crops.