Burlington Elementary students Leo Rodriguez and Diego De La Fuente-Soto were looking for an activity when they discovered the KidWind Challenge. Little did they know they would soon be competing at a national level.
Rodriquez and De La Fuente-Sotos were invited to join the KidWind Challenge by their fourth-grade teacher Jodi Wilden.
The KidWind Challenge is a hands-on educational competition that engages elementary, middle and high school students in learning about renewable energy and the engineering design process. Students spend several weeks “researching, building and testing wind turbine towers that can generate an electrical energy current,” Wilden said.
The process requires students to also study renewable energy, aerodynamics and engineering to create an efficient turbine. Often students will engineer the blades for the turbines several times until they discover the maximum efficiency, Wilden said.
The two students took first place at the Regional KidWind Challenge in March with a turbine that was efficient enough to provide enough electricity for a small household, according to an SVVSD news release. On May 14, they were invited to the National KidWind Challenge at the University of Colorado, Boulder. There their design outperformed the competition.
Rodriguez and De La Fuente-Soto said the topic is interesting and wanted to “teach people about the benefits of renewable energy.”
At the moment, neither of them knows what their future holds. They said they may explore other things or continue studying wind turbines.
“We wanted to get the experience and have fun,” they said.
