I needed a phone charger at work, but didn't want to just pick up the first one available from a webshop, so I decided to design my own using the Bambu Lab Wireless Charging Kit K012.

I definitely wanted to make use of the included N20 gear motor, and after a lot of thinking, I decided to turn it into a wind turbine. Wind turbines generate electricity, which complements a wireless charger quite nicely.

The idea was simple: place the phone on the marked spot, the phone starts charging, and the blades start spinning. It creates the illusion that the wind turbine is generating the energy to charge the phone (obviously, it's just an illusion, as the turbine is driven by an electric motor).

There were a few technical challenges along the way. The motor cable was too short to place the motor at the top of the turbine, and doing so would also have raised the center of gravity.…