B4W Catch Me If You Can: Build an Anemometer (version 2)

In four of the cups, punch a hole about 1/2 inch below the rim. In the fifth cup, punch four holes, about ¼ inch down, evenly spaced around the rim, plus one hole in the center of the bottom of the cup.
In one of the four one-holed cups, push a straw through the hole. Fold the end of the straw and staple it to the side of the cup opposite the hole. Repeat with another cup.
Now take the straw from one of these cup-and-straw parts and push it through two opposite holes in the fifth cup. Put the other cup-and-straw through the other two holes.
On each of the open straw ends, staple another cup, making sure the cup faces the opposite direction as its partner on the same straw.
Once all four cups are on the straws around the center cup, turn the straws so all the open ends point clockwise (or all point counter-clockwise).
Push the straight pin down through where the two straws meet, and into the eraser of the pencil, poking through the bottom of the center cup.
Mark one of the four cups as your "flag" cup; each time this cup spins around, your anemometer makes one revolution. The more revolutions per minute, the faster the wind.
Use this with other weather instruments to find out about your area.

Record the movement of your anemometer over several days.
Hook up your anemometer to a LEGO Mindstorms brick and sensor that can automatically count how many times your anemometer rotates in a minute.
Make a wind vane or windsock to tell you the direction of the wind
Due to friction and other physical forces, the anemometer's spin rate can't directly tell us wind speed. Research how an anemometer's revolutions translate to wind speed; think about what other factors are involved. Create a table to translate your readings into wind speed.

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