Bring the engineering design to life with the KidWind Challenge. Check out a KidWind Turbine Kit and try out some free lessons! You could have students research previous wind turbine designs to see the purpose and results before creating their own design. You could use this sheet for students to test, let's say they start with the number of blades. Once they have the optimal number of blades, they could try testing blade pitch. If you have more time, you could try testing each type of blade variable to create the best design. It works best to have at least 1 testing station (tower and box fan) and multiple lab stations (groups of 3-4). Students can take the hub and blades off to design at their lab stations and take turns at the testing station. The Kansas Energy Program offers many resources and equipment that educators can borrow for free! Other useful equipment that you can borrow include the KidWind Vernier Protractor for changing the blade pitch (send us an email for the protractor).
NGSS: K-PS2-1, K-2-ETS1-2, 2-PS1-2, 4-PS3-4, MS-ESS2-5, MS-ETS1-1, MS-ETS1-2, MS-ETS1-3, MS-ETS1-4, MS-PS3-5, HS-PS3-2, HS-PS3-3, HS-ETS1-1, HS-ETS1-2, HS-ETS1-3, HS-ETS1-4
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