Makersmiths 2023 Winning Teams

Innovation Award Goes to Neighborhood WATTS

The 8th annual National KidWind Challenge was held at the University of Colorado-Boulder campus May 14-17. The two Makersmiths’ KidWind solar teams, Neighborhood WATTs and Operation Cheap and Clean, competed with teams from the USA and Mexico.

The high school team, Neighborhood WATTS, was coached by Makersmiths member, Justin McMillen and assisted by Diane Painter. The team created a solar-powered town with a power-generating station that used a solar cell structure that was programmed to follow the path of the sun. The team also added several Aruduino-powered sensors that operated a smoke alarm and a movement sensor and turned on lights within the town’s homes when the light dimmed. Their project won the Innovation Award in KidWind’s newly created National Solar Challenge. Previous to this year, KidWind only hosted wind turbine challenges.

First Place in the Middle School VA-State Solar Challenge Goes to OC&C

The second team from Makersmiths to compete at the National Kidwind Challenge was our middle school solar team, Operation Cheap and Clean. The team was coached by Makersmiths members Adam and Ganit Pricer that took the team to the Northern Virginia KidWind Regional Challenge and Virginia State Challenge. Coaches Diane Painter and Nora Young took the team to the National Challenge. The team's project demonstrated a distributed energy strategy providing their solar-powered city with a more reliable electric grid. The team also demonstrated that using multiple energy sources, it can push power across the city, protecting it from outages. When Operation Cheap and Clean won first place in the Virginia State solar challenge, they also won the knowledge award (meaning they aced the knowledge quiz on renewable energies!)

What Happens at a National Challenge?

During the three days of the National KidWind Challenge, teams presented their projects to renewable industry judges. They explained their design and development processes to the judges, who scored them for originality and teamwork. Teams also completed multiple Instant challenges, including building a solar water pump and debating the merits and possibilities of creating a solar farm in a rural community (KidWindLandia). High school students calculated energy efficiency, and middle school students participated in a “Lock-Out/Tag-Out” circuitry safety challenge. All teams participated in a quiz bowl to test their renewable energy knowledge.

In this year’s event, KidWind piloted a Fixed Bottom Offshore Wind Challenge. Both our teams built and brought a turbine that would stand firm in a sand and water-filled tank to the competition. They tested the stability and efficiency of their structures in an offshore wind tunnel.

The HoT HAWTS: Middle School Wind

Makersmiths' middle school wind turbine team (called The Hot HAWTs) also did very well at the Northern Virginia Regional Challenge at Shenandoah University. Coached by Makersmiths' member, AJ Taylor, the team came in second place in the wind category with an invitation to go to the Virginia State Challenge at James Madison University. Not bad for a first year KidWind coach and teammates!

Testing the Wind Turbine in the Wind Tunnel

At a wind challenge, wind turbines are tested in a wind tunnel to determine how much energy is produced under 30 ohm resistance.

The team created many different sets of blades as they tested their wind turbine to see which set of blades produces the most energy.

During the Virginia State and National KidWind challenges, several KidWind staff members or other coaches approached our team tables to say they heard from the industry judges that they were so impressed by what our Makersmiths organization is doing to support our youth when they create KidWind projects. It truly is amazing what our team members show in their creativity and engineering ideas. But most of all, during the KidWind’s local, regional, and national challenges, our youth meet many renewable energy professionals and teams from different localities, and they have a lot fun.

This year, Makersmiths’ STEM/Engineering programs that includes KidWind initiatives was funded through the support of a Google Data Centers grant. With this financial support and the time and energy Makersmiths’ coaches, parents and others spent during the school year with our KidWind team members, our youth learned so much about renewable energy and were ultimately recognized at the regional, state and national levels for their accomplishments.

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