This year’s Wind Turbine Design Competition ~turned~ out great! Thank you to everyone who helped organize this event and to those who participated and came to watch, we look forward to hosting more events like this in the future!
The winning design, dubbed the Double-Blade Low-Reynolds (grey turbine), was made by Matthew Wilkinson and Peter Kemp and reached a steady state voltage of 7.3V after 15 seconds! Congratulations! More details on the competition can be found below.
The goal of the Wind Turbine Design Competition was to design and construct a simple wind turbine of no more than 30x30x30cm^3 and 5lb. Each contestant’s design could be horizontal or vertical and constructed out of whatever material available. The competition itself is meant to be a simple example of the basics of wind turbine design and to be done in about a weeks time. The designs were then tested by connecting them to a small wind tunnel and DC motor to test output. Creativity, robustness, and steady state time were also grading factors.
The top three teams received prize bags that included engineering merch and pizza gift cards. Successful designs will also be reviewed and potentially utilized for future UREC projects making this event beneficial to all involved!
Overall, the competition was very informative and fun for both the contestants and the organizers. UREC hopes to have more competitions like this in the future so stay tuned!
A special thanks to the UVic Engineering Students Society (ESS) and Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions (PICS) for sponsoring this event.
