WeDoWind

A live public kiosk dashboard for the Lawrence Weston community wind turbine display, built as part of the WeDoWind Challenge 5: ACE public communication display.

Overview

This project presents live turbine telemetry in a clear, public-facing format using:

• Next.js
• React
• TypeScript
• Three.js / React Three Fiber
• Tailwind CSS

It shows live power, rotor speed, wind conditions, and a 3D turbine model while translating raw data into accessible community impact metrics.

Features

• Live ACE turbine data via a server-side proxy
• Public kiosk layout optimised for continuous display
• Animated 3D turbine digital twin
• Community impact metrics and equivalent summaries
• Automatic refresh and graceful fallback states

Local development

npm install
npm run dev

Then open http://localhost:3000.

Production build

npm run build
npm run start

Demo mode

After 30 s without any input on the live 3D view (touch, mouse, keyboard or wheel), the kiosk starts a guided tour: it opens the tower, nacelle, generator, hub and blades in turn and selects every component inside each one, staying on each for 4.5–9 s (2 s camera flight plus time scaled to its panel text), with the overview in between. The first input ends it.

Tap the clock (top right) to start or stop the tour by hand and to choose the time on each component: Auto (above) or a fixed 4, 6, 10, 15 or 20 s; the choice is remembered on that screen. A tour started from the menu ignores plain mouse movement and ends on a click, touch or key. The data tabs are not part of the tour; they return to the live view after 3 minutes without input, as before. Tour order and timing: src/components/turbine/demoTour.ts; idle time: DEMO_IDLE_MS in src/app/page.tsx.

Charts

Every chart in the "Last hours" and "10-min statistics" tabs can be zoomed by window: drag across the plot (mouse, pen or finger) to draw a selection and release to zoom into it — a time span on time and bar charts, a rectangle on the power curve; repeat to zoom further, double-click or the ↺ button to reset; on time charts the zoom is shared by all the charts of the tab, like the hover readout. The ⓘ button explains each figure (what it shows, why it matters, what to look for) and ⤢ opens it full screen with the explanation alongside. Texts: src/components/charts/chartInfo.ts.

Static build (GitHub Pages)

The kiosk can also run with no server at all, e.g. on GitHub Pages:

npm run build:static        # → out/, served from /WeDoWind/ (BASE_PATH="" for a domain root)

In this build the /api/ace/* proxy routes are left out (a static host cannot run them) and the browser calls the ACE API directly, which serves CORS headers for any origin. Everything else is identical to the server build.

.github/workflows/pages.yml publishes it automatically on every push to master. One-time setup: repository Settings → Pages → Build and deployment → Source: GitHub Actions. The site is then at https://robeche.github.io/WeDoWind/. Optional NEXT_PUBLIC_* settings (see Configuration) can be set as repository variables.

The turbine

ENERCON E-115 E3, 4.2 MW: 115.7 m rotor (56 m blades), ~92 m hub height, 150 m to the blade tip. The 3D twin in src/components/Turbine3D.tsx is built to these dimensions (1 unit = 1 m), with the EP3-style faceted nacelle and ring generator.

Site surroundings (Gaussian splat)

public/splats/lawrence-weston.splat (≈1.1 M splats, 38 MB) and lawrence-weston-lite.splat (400 k, phones) are a 3D Gaussian splat of the real site, trained from a 360° Google Earth Studio orbit with COLMAP + Brush (pipeline and re-training notes in GEarth/splat_work/README.md). They are already in scene units (1 unit = 1 m, Y up, tower axis at the origin, -Z north) with the Google Earth turbine cut out, and are drawn by src/components/turbine/SiteSplat.tsx. Pass site={false} to Turbine3D to hide them.

Configuration

Copy .env.example to .env.local:

Variable	Default	Purpose
ACE_API_BASE_URL	https://ace-api.duckdns.org	Upstream ACE API (server only)
NEXT_PUBLIC_HOUSEHOLD_KWH_PER_YEAR	2500	Household use for "homes powered" (Ofgem TDCV)
NEXT_PUBLIC_COMMUNITY_FUND_GBP_PER_KWH	(unset)	Shows the community-fund card when set; otherwise lifetime energy is shown

Environment notes

The server build (Vercel, npm start) fetches live data through the project’s API routes, which cache upstream requests shared by every screen. The static build (GitHub Pages) has no server, so each browser calls the ACE API directly.

License

MIT