Thinking About Competing?
Form a Team
A team can consist of between 1-10 students. We typically recommend smaller teams of 2-4 people. Anyone between 4th-12th grade can compete in the competition.
Our Competition has 3 divisions:
Elementary School Division (4th-5th graders)
Middle School Division (6th-8th graders)
High School Division (8th-12th graders)
Find a Coach
Each team needs an adult coach. KidWind requires 1 coach for every 10 students competing.
Expand Your Knowledge of Wind Energy
Your knowledge of wind energy will be tested through a pre-recorded presentation to judges. You should be able to answer the following questions:
How can wind power impact climate change?
What causes wind?
What kinds of devices transform the power of wind?
How can we calculate power in the wind?
How do we deal with wind variability?
Where does our electricity come from?
What are some of the negative impacts of wind power?
How do we pay for wind power?
What does the future of wind energy look like?
What careers are there in the wind industry?
Understand Key Concepts About Power
While you are designing and testing your turbine, you will need to understand key concepts about power. It is important to understand voltage, current, power, and energy.
Why do you need this understanding?
The competition ask you to design a turbine that generates the most power. So, what is power? How does a turbine generate power? How do we measure power output?
During the competition a 30 ohm load will be applied to your turbine. So, what is a load? How does adding a load to your turbine affect your power output?
What do I need to compete in the Virtual Competition?
Minimal materials required to compete in the virtual competition! You will need the materials listed below.
Whitebox Learning Account
The virtual competition is run on the White Box Learning platform. Students form teams of up to 5 students to compete in the competition. Each student will receive their own log in information to access the platform. While each student goes through the simulation separately, students should be communicating and sharing what they find works best. The team score is determined by taking a composite of all of the individual scores on the team. To get your students' log in, please register here. There will be delay from when you register to when you receive your student log in information.
Access to Internet
No software required. White Box Learning is completely web-based.
Computer or Chromebook
Students will need a computer or Chromebook to access White Box Learning. Please note that White Box Learning does not work on tablets.
How do I get Started with the Virtual Competition?
Start the Simulation
When first starting the simulation, students should start with the research section. The research section contains important content knowledge to help students design model turbine blades, place turbines on a wind farm, and simulate a test of performance. After the research section is completed, students should proceed to the engineering section to design their blades, and place on a wind farm.
Test your Design
Students can the simulate a competition to see how their design performs. Students can decide to continue to make improvements; OR if they received enough points, they can advance to the next level. There are a total of five levels in the competition.
Build and Record your Presentation
Record a <10 minute presentation showing pictures of their turbine design and their wind farm layout in at least 3 levels of the simulation. Teams should also include a description of their design philosophy and how this may have adjusted as they moved through the levels.
Want to learn more about the Virtual competition?
What do I need to compete in the Build and Test Challenge?
Building your wind turbine for the competition does not need to be expensive! You will need the materials listed below.
Generator
If this is your first year competing, we recommend that you use the KidWind Turbine Generator from Vernier. More experienced KidWind competitiors may decide to build their own generator.
Blades
You make these out of any material. A lot of teams use cardboard, balsa wood, or even 3D print them. You should note that pre-made air foils are not allowed in the competition!
Dowels to attach your blades and a wind turbine hub
You can find both of these products through the Vernier KidWind products. You can save money by buying the parts in a package all together. The KidWind Basic Turbine Building Parts includes, dowels, a hub, and a KidWind Generator for $16.
Gearboxes or belt drives
Using a gearbox or belt drive greatly increases the power output of your wind turbine. You can purchase KidWind gearboxes from vernier or make your own!
Towers
You can make a tower for your turbine out of anything. Many teams will build a PVC tower turbine or get a simple KidWind tower from Vernier. However, you can also build your tower from wood, cardboard tubes, tinker-toys, or plastic! Your imagination is the limit!
Fans or Wind Tunnels
You can use any fan to test your turbine like a simple box fan. The PA KidWind challenge will use the KidWind Competition Wind Tunnel to test your turbine.
How do I get started with the Build and Test Competition?
Build Your Turbine
Build your small, functional wind turbine! Your goal is to produce a wind turbine that produces the most power. As you go, learn and continue to improve upon your design in order to generate more power.
Where do I start?
Start with the KidWind motor and experiment with blade variables (i.e. blade length, number of blades, pitch, shape, width, and blade material).
You will eventually find that the KidWind generator is more efficient spinning faster and you will want to use the mechanical advantage of a gearbox to help increase the speed of your generator. You can start with the KidWind Gearbox then eventually move on to building your own Gearbox.
Once you have worked with a gearbox, you may decide to design your own generator in order to optimize the relationship between the rotational speed of the generator and rotational speed of the rotor.
Optimizing your turbine design by looking at different loads besides the competition 30 ohm resistor. See rules for more details if you are at this level as you need to be careful as to not generator too much power!
Test your Turbine
Test your turbine performance in order to continually make changes and improve your turbine! You can approximate the power output and energy output of your turbine with a multimeter and resistors.
Use the Performance Calculator Guide to figure out the power output and efficiency of your turbine!
Build Your Presentation
Team will present a <10 minute presentation to a panel of judges on the day of competition. The presentation should document the progression of their turbine design and how the team iterated on this design or made improvements to the design to increase performance.
Using Vernier KidWind Materials
Turbine Assembly
Adding Gears
SimpleGEN setup
What if I don't have a KidWind Kit?
You don't need a Vernier KidWind kit to make a tower. You can make an inexpensive tower out of PVC piping. Check out the instructions for building a tower here!
