Five Wisconsin teams qualify for national KidWind Challenge

A member of the Collegiate Wind Competititon Team wears a Wisconsin red T-shirt helps a young boy at a KidWind table.

A member of the Collegiate Wind Competition Team builds an electrical circuit with a young boy during one of the many Expo stations at the Wisconsin KidWind Challenge. Chelsea Mamott/Wisconsin Energy Institute

Five teams of elementary, middle and high school students from Wisconsin will get to test their clean energy knowledge and engineering skills on a national stage after qualifying to compete in the World KidWind Challenge.

Nineteen teams of more than 70 students from across Wisconsin and northern Illinois squared off at the Wisconsin KidWind Challenge earlier this month at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

In the seventh annual competition hosted by the Wisconsin Energy Institute, budding engineers designed and built model wind turbines and put them to the test in wind tunnels, where sensors measured the energy produced. Other teams built solar-powered devices. They also faced instant challenges, like having to figure out the best way to lay out a wind farm, and gave presentations to a panel of judges.

Students watch as their turbine is tested in a wind tunnel.

Team members from the Riverdale School District in Muscoda, Wisconsin, watch as their wind turbine is put to the test in a wind tunnel. Chelsea Mamott

Qualifying Teams:

First place Elementary Solar: Driftless Dynamos, Stoddard, WI
First Place Elementary Wind: Sugar Maple Tornados, Saukville, WI
First place Middle School Wind: Coulee Joules, Stoddard, WI
Second place Middle School Wind: TEHK, Darlington, WI
First place High School Division Wind: SIGMA, Mauston, WI

The atmosphere charged with excitement.

“I’m scared,” Rose Gruetzmacher said as her team prepared to test their turbine after making last-minute adjustments to the cardboard blades.

It was the second trip to KidWind for the seventh grader from Darlington Middle School, and while her Solar Winds team didn’t qualify for Worlds, it was still a good experience.

“We didn’t do as great as we might have expected, and we just tried to stay positive,” Gruetzmacher said.

The Driftless Dynamos from Stoddard, Wisconsin, won in the first place elementary solar category.

The Sugar Maple Tornados from Saukville, Wisconsin, won in the first place elementary wind category.

The Coulee Joules from Stoddard, Wisconsin, won in the first place middle school category.

TEHK from Darlington, Wisconsin, won in the second place middle school wind category.

SIGMA, from Mauston, Wisconsin, won first place in the high school division.

Chelsea Mamott

Cameron Smith, a middle schooler at St. Thomas the Apostle school in Crystal Lake, Ill., said the experience forced him to get beyond perfectionism.

“In KidWind, it’s trial and error – and there’s a lot of error,” Smith said. “Sometimes error isn’t bad. You can improve on it and sometimes use that to your advantage later on.”

Despite broken blades, botched gear ratios, and a hub held together by duct tape, teammate Michael Robson said they did better than he expected.

“I totally thought we were going to get absolutely demolished,” Robson said. “I thought people would have 100, 200 joules and we’d be made fools. But we didn’t.”

Robson said his favorite part was improving while working with friends.

“I’m definitely going back next year,” he said.

Most participants said they appreciated the camaraderie of working together with teammates – and even other teams – to overcome engineering challenges.

“Even if we’re competitive, we’re always giving each other ideas, we’re always sharing information, we’re always sharing tools,” said Darlington middle school teacher Aaron Johnson, who coached two teams. “Every engineering problem always has a solution, and there’s not always one solution. There’s many solutions.”

Students from Darlington, Stoddard, Mauston, and Saukville qualified to compete in the World KindWind Challenge May 5-8 in Minneapolis.

Special Awards: