iaing94

Hello all. Today I salvaged the electric motor out of a washing machine that was being thrown out. It is in perfect working order. As a budding mechanical engineer, (I am still in school, applying to universities just now) I would love to do something useful and fun with it. Anybody have any ideas?

Bearing in mind:

-It is mains powered (230V, 50Hz)

- Says on the label 15000rpm, but I reckon for anything useful I will gear it down, although I'm not an expert on gear ratios so I could probably use a bit of help there.
I salvaged the control panel of the machine with it, meaning I should be able to set it to variable speeds.

-It is quite bulky and heavy, ie not particularly portable.

Any ideas? I'm sure plenty of you guys have done things similar to this before.