Senior Design students pave the way for involvement in the Collegiate Wind Competition
This year, an interdisciplinary team ofSenior Design students is the first at CU ǸԹ to enter the as a learn-along team. They are working hard to secure a spot for CU ǸԹ in the competition next year and are making impressive strides inwind energy innovation and education. The team includes Abdoul Bah, Ioana Dumitru, David Imola, Austin Kim, Charlie McClung, James Rizkallah, Xander Sugarman and Emily Zuetell. Read about their experience below.
A wind turbine designed by CU ǸԹ's first Collegiate Wind Competition Senior Design team.
Share about your Senior Design project. What problem does your project solve?
Our Senior Design project aims to design, developand inspire. The project is splitinto three different competitions that all involve the wind industry:
- The first part is designing a wind turbine prototype that will accomplish different tasks. Each tasktests a different characteristic of a wind turbine such as cut-in wind speed, power curve performance,control of rated power and rotor speed, safety and durability. The goal of this project is to understandthe mechanical and electrical systems that go into designing a wind turbine.
- The second part is developing a 100-megawattwind farm in the western region of South Dakota. Thiscompetition aims to utilize modeling programs and conduct extensive research to determine a site withoptimal wind resources and favorable financial analysis.
- The final part is community outreach to spark community interest in wind energy. This includespartnering with KidWind, a company that develops curriculums and lessons about renewable energytoteach k-12 students about the potential wind energy can provide. The community outreach competitionalso involves networking with local wind energy representatives and establishing a presence on localmedia.
What is theCollegiate Wind Competition?
The United States Department of Energy (DOE)anticipates about 20 to 30%ofU.S.energy supply will besourced from wind energy in the next 10to 15 years, a considerable increase from today’s 7 to 9%.The DOE and National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) created the competition in2014 to help fill in those roles once the push for wind energy initiates. The competition aims to attractstudents of various disciplines to be invested in wind energy and be inspired to contribute innovativesolutions.
Why was this project of interest to you?
Our team consists of mechanical and electrical engineers with various skillsets and emphases.The team divided into specific team roles and a subteam based on previous experience and personalgoals. These personal goals range from sharpening technical skills of mechanical and electricalsubsystems to improving planning and communication skills. However, we all share a passion formitigating climate change and aim for a future that pushes for renewable energy.
What have you and your team accomplished that you are proud of?
We are proud that we are on time, if notahead of schedule despite the circumstances. Ourteam is considered to be a small team since we consist of eight team members. We have a solid start inall three parts of the competition and feel very confident about our progress. We were able to quicklyestablish a great team dynamic and a strong work ethic which allowed us to have a detailed preliminarydesign for the turbine, quality candidates to site our wind farmand a plan for community outreach withKidWind. Despite this being CU ǸԹ'sfirst year in the Collegiate Wind Competition, our team has been able to overcome obstaclesdespite not having the previous experienceother teams had. Our goal is to spread the message ofresilience to inspire the community that collaboration and innovation is still possible during this newonline world.
We are also proud of our determination to represent CU ǸԹ. This year, we are alearn-along team which means our team is not officially competing in the competition, but we are stillprovided with the same resources and expectations as competing teams. Our team is using this freedomto really challenge ourselves and pave the way for CU ǸԹ to be a recognized competing team in the nearfuture. We are challenging ourselves to create a more robust electrical system and exceeding thenumber of turbine testing tasks that a first-year team is expected to complete. We are proud that ourteam is seeing being a learn-along team as an advantage to create “outside of the box” designs insteadof a missed opportunity.
What have you learned from this project so far?
Each team member started this project with different levels of experience in wind energy.However, we all gained a greater understanding of necessary technical and soft skills that can be directlytransferable to industry. NREL provided each team with extensive resources regarding modeling programs, networkingopportunitiesand communication techniques. We were expected to use Continuum and SystemAdvisory Model (SAM) to extract wind resource data and financial models for certain site locations. NRELhas also provided documentation for regulations and community outreach techniques.The Collegiate Wind Competitionencourages peer-to-peer learning and teaching, not only with team membersbut withother competing teams. Although every team is competing against each other, there was room for inter-team collaboration. As a matter of fact, part of the competition requirements is to research what teamshave done in the past and document how previous reports affected our current design. This taught ourteam how to balance between innovation and uniqueness with feasible and operational. We were ableto sharpen our creativity and critical thinking skills which are skills that are difficult to obtain from aclassroom.
What are you most excited to share with others about this project?
We are excited to share with students and faculty members that there is now a more intimateway to get involved with renewable energy. This competition welcomes those interested in wind energydespite the level of previous knowledge. Our team is very excited to share our progress in our windenergy journey. It is a big step for CU ǸԹ to enter this competition since it opens up an opportunity forstudents to gain knowledge, experienceand resources within the renewable energy industry. Our teamis very open to mentors invested in the project and students interested in shadowing our progress.