This years KidWind and Flinn Scientific’s WhiteBox Learning (WBL) offered students the opportunity to try their hand at building a simulated turbine! In this National Challenge, students use the WhiteBox Learning simulation software to construct and test virtual turbines and wind farms. For the 2023-24 Challenge we added a new component where teams will use their knowledge from the Simulation to test small turbine blades using a kit we send you.

The KidWind Simulation Challenge started during COVID as a way for students to participate in a fully virtual wind challenge.

The 2024 Simulation Challenge had two main parts, and a new physical component.

2024 Top Performers

Middle School

Rank	Score	Student(s)	Classroom/Team
1	100	Gopal Naidu Saladi	Meadowbrook Middle School
2	97.82	Utkarsh Mishra	Meadowbrook Middle School
3	97.32	Tenley	Heppner Jr/Sr High School
4	77.66	Darby	Heppner Jr/Sr High School
5	76.39	Wyatt Carey Lane Altman Aryan Mungara Charlie Grover Brandon Perez Tayven Laulainen Bandr Christensen Reilly Shull Kayden Collins Flint Halonen	Hermosa School
6	66.78	Kathryn	Heppner Jr/Sr High School
7	66.78	Ashlee	Heppner Jr/Sr High School
8	62.43	Gage	Heppner Jr/Sr High School
9	61.26	Naomi	Heppner Jr/Sr High School
10	57.24	Emilla	Heppner Jr/Sr High School

High School

Rank	Score	Student(s)	Classroom/Team
1	100	Kalvin Menne	Postville Jr/Sr High School
2	98.9	Edwing Guevara Garcia	Charles E. Shea High
3	95.3	Kenneth Ross	MIT Academy
4	83.7	Elvis Martinez Jimenez	Charles E. Shea High
5	79.6	Lewis Dias Dasilva	Charles E. Shea High
6	77.5	Eben Bamberry	Exeter West Greenwich HS Seagull Engineering
	77.5	Cristiano Depina Candido	Charles E. Shea High
7	74.50	Stanley Molina	Charles E. Shea High
8	72.80	Quaid	Heppner Jr/Sr High School
9	68.60	Logan O'Connor	Exeter West Greenwich HS Wacky Wavy Inflatable Windmen
	68.60	Jesse Ruscito	Exeter West Greenwich HS Wind Soup

Turbine Blade Design and Performance

Students used a simplified CAD program to design complex blades and see how they perform on a KidWind scale turbine in different conditions. Students learned a great deal about airfoils, physics, and other related fields as they designed their blades. The material in this part of the simulation can get complex.

Wind Farm Design

In this part of the simulation, students designed and construcedt wind farms. They took several factors into account to build a wind farm that produces the most power at the lowest cost. It was a challenge!

The simulation is done in a game mode where participants earn points for how well their designs perform, how much they iterate on their designs, and how they do on quizzes. The simulation had 5 levels and it got more challenging to complete each level as students progresses.

Blade Construction & Turbine Testing

In 2024 we have added a new dimension to this challenge because we want students to experiment in the real world and see how well they can transfer knowledge from the game to real life.

Who can participate?

The content found in the KidWind Simulation Challenge is most appropriate for high school students who have taken a physics course. Middle school students can also participate but some of the physics concepts maybe challenging.

Students from anywhere in the world. We can only send KidWind Turbine Kits to coaches who are based in the US.

Divisions

There are middle school (6th-8th grades) and high school (9th-12th grades) divisions in the National Simulation Challenge. Students can participate alone or on a team.

Simulation Challenge Events

Simulation Performance (80%)

The majority of your overall score was derived from how well you and your teammates perform on the simulation based challenges of blade design and wind farm design.

Blade Construction & Turbine Testing (20%)

As many students have become very good at using the simulation to design blades and build wind farms, we want to see what you can do in the real world.

Scoring & Leaderboard

After February 15th, a bi-weekly leaderboard of the top performers will be posted. It will have all participants ranked by their performance scores and if they have uploaded a turbine to the Online Wind Challenge.

Informational Webinars

We hosted an informational webinar about the 2024 Simulation Challenge. You can watch the recording here.