2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Background: This GIFTS paper will describe how a popular and commercially available K-12 wind power kit has been adapted to be used in an introductory engineering course. At Kansas State University, a popular design competition for introducing design and critical thinking skills to K-12 students, KidWind, has been reimagined to enhance the teaching of the engineering design process. The objective of this group project is to emphasize and reinforce key aspects such as design criteria, constraints, data verification and validation, end user experience, cost, and technical communication. These topics are all covered in the course material. The course has both individual and group assessments.

Motivation: First year engineering students desire hands on learning experiences to assist them in gaining an introduction to the fundamental tools that they will be using in their future careers. In this large enrollment first year design course the wind turbine project allows students to work in a collaborative team while learning the engineering design process in a multidisciplinary team that may have a broad range of engineering interests. The project also allows for substantial student creativity and exploration into the ideas of wind power without needing much investment into providing the student groups with specialized equipment and resources.

Methods: General instruction on the design process is provided in the first five weeks of class where students must study the design process individually. During week six, project groups are formed, and each group is given a turbine generator and shipping box along with a project description that includes the following constraints: 1) Turbine Generator: Students must use the KidWind Turbine Generator, manufactured by Vernier, which is commonly used in national K-12 KidWind competitions. For this project, however, it has been repurposed. 2) Packaging: The completed wind turbine must fit into a USPS priority mail medium flat rate box and able to be shipped anywhere in the world. 3) Ease of Assembly: The wind turbine must be unboxed and assembled by a “customer” in less than 10 minutes without any assistance from the student group who designed it. 4) Cost: The total cost to create the wind turbine must not exceed $25 ($6 of which is the turbine generator.)
The students must determine two additional design criteria with numerical constraints as well as determine ways to verify and validate those constraints.

While the understanding of the design process is paramount, this project culminates in an expo day where packaged wind turbines are opened by volunteer end users, built under the time constraint, and then tested in a wind tunnel with the turbine generators connected to an energy sensor. The expo day also helps students practice communication skills with a broad audience. While the objective of the class is to highlight the design project with hands on learning, the culminating aspect of competitive testing is a student favorite and provides motivation throughout the semester to create a design which does not only meet constraints but also emphasizes functionality, performance, and efficiency. Because the building and testing is done by unknown volunteers, it also provides student with a great opportunity to think about and design for the end user or customer. As a team project, students need to discuss and share their thoughts about the user needs, abilities, and background knowledge. This design project has been used in several semesters of the introductory design course.

Assessment: Currently, the introductory design course is co-taught by 7 instructors with an enrollment around 450 students. Student groups get to pick from 5 different projects which includes the wind turbine project. About 40% (39/99) of the student groups select the wind turbine project. Assessment of the course includes ABET outcomes 3 – ability to communicate with a range of audiences, 5 – ability to function effectively on a team, and 7 – ability to acquire and apply new knowledge as needed. Assessment of ABET outcomes will be compared across the 5 available projects.