Brookside Middle Students Design, Build Model Wind Farm

Students in Engineering Technology classes at Brookside Middle School designed and built miniature windmills for a model wind farm to show how an alternative energy source can help provide electric power, using the knowledge they acquired in school to complete the hands-on project.

“This was a complete ‘STEM’ activity because it incorporated science, technology, engineering and mathematics,” said teacher Joel Kaplan. “All the constraints and criteria of this project enabled the students to use the processes of problem solving, thinking and reasoning, along with the safe use of tools and machines. What better way for students to learn than to take an idea from planning to design and then construct a finished working model?”

The students spent the first few months of the school year studying various methods of generating energy, including wind power. Then they worked in groups of three or four to research the design, construction and uses of truss towers and wind-powered turbines, including the advantages and disadvantages of wind as an energy source.

They used brainstorming activities to decide on the design of their truss towers and how their wind generator would meet the stated criteria for the project, which included a minimum and maximum height and the ability to capture wind from all directions. Each wind generator was built on top of a truss tower of the students’ own design, so each tower in the model wind farm was unique.

One of the hardest parts of the assignment was to design and build a platform for the top of the windmill that would enable the generator to capture the wind from any direction and be capable of powering a light-emitting diode, or LED. The “wind” for the model farm is simulated by a 20-inch fan.

The students also learned practical business lessons from the experience. Each group had to form a corporation and assign jobs to all team members. Each corporation was given $20 in imaginary technology start-up money to “purchase” materials and “rent” tools for the project.

Engineering Technology classes in middle and high schools are part of the Sarasota County School District’s Career and Technical Education program.