PANAMA CITY — Technical students have completed a shockingly practical project.
Students of the electrical school at Haney Technical School have costructed a Tesla Coil in-house from raw materials. The project took about six months from start to finish and now, standing about 5-feet-tall, the Tesla Coil can generate as much as 300,000 volts at its highest power setting, according to Robert Callier, who teaches the electrical course.
While the task provided students with hands-on experience in building one of the oldest electrical devices, Callier said people would be better left alone while it is at full strength.
“It’s not something you would want to touch, that is for sure,” Callier said.
Created by Nikola Tesla around 1891, the Tesla Coil is used to produce high-voltage, low-current, high frequency alternating-current electricity. Tesla first constructed his coil as the “War of Currents” began in the initial years of electricity distribution and helped sway contemporary preference toward alternating current over the Thomas Edison-backed direct current.
Today direct current is used in many electronics while the main use of a Tesla Coil is for entertainment and educational displays, although small coils are still used as leak detectors for high vacuum systems.
But piecing one together from raw materials can be a course through the fundamental history of electricity, Callier said. It also incorporates engineering and mechanics in the construction process.
“A lot of what we do is theoretical, but this gives them a basic understanding of electricity and how we have been able to manipulate it,” Callier said.
The students hand-picked the project in January of 2013 and by April it was functional. For the next project, Callier said his students will be working on a Haney Mardi Gras float designed with a two “green-energy power systems,” he said. One is planned to be solar-powered while the other will be designed after a self-sustaining battery system.
“These projects are all part of laying something out and seeing it to completion,” Callier said. “But it also has to have a craftsmanship of which they can be proud.”