Windy Engineering: Designing Wind Turbine Blades

Wind turbines are an increasingly common sight as you drive around in the Michigan countryside. So long as the wind is blowing at an appropriate speed, these devices are able to transform the wind's kinetic energy (which isn't all that useful to people) into electrical energy (which is). In this project, you'll be designing turbine blades, the large aerofoils that catch the wind and transfer its kinetic energy to the electrical generator. It'll be your job to decide how they should look, how they should be positioned around the turbine's hub, and even how many there should be.

The Standards

This project is designed to meet Michigan's HS-ETS1-1, HS-ETS1-2, and HS-ETS1-3 engineering standards, along with many of ISTE's Student standards. For more information, you can read our standards summary document, Michigan's standards document, and the ISTE's standards page.

The Rubric

The best design won't just have to be good at generating electricity. It's also important to have wind turbine blades that are durable (so they don't break) and that use as little material as possible (so they're not too expensive to make). You'll also need to be able to work with your teammates, and understand your test results well enough to explain them to others. You can see the full rubric that your teacher will use to grade your project here.

Important Links

• Onshape's website contains everything you need to do your CAD work, including of course the Onshape application.
• You'll also want to refer to our Onshape tutorial videos to help you learn how to make models. Most of these are very important for your project, but you can probably skip over Fun with Patterns if you're short on time.
• Introductory WebQuest
• Introduction for teachers and administrators
• Sign-up form for teachers

Step by Step

• The STEM Explorer team will deliver an introductory lecture first, to get you started with the project. We'll try to come to your school in-person to kick off the project if that's possible, but if not we'll try to do a live lecture with videoconferencing technology, or in the worst case ask you to watch our prerecorded video lecture.
• If at all possible, the project introduction will also include a field trip, or virtual field trip to DTE Energy's Renewable Energy Center in Bad Axe, MI. We're still trying to arrange the details for this; your teacher will know whether you're going to be able to participate.
• Next, you'll do some research on wind turbines and their history, so you understand more about what you're supposed to build. Our WebQuest is designed to give you a place to start.
• By the second week of the project, you should be ready to start learning parametric CAD modelling with Onshape. We've created some Onshape tutorials for you to watch, and the STEM Explorer team will of course be available to help you.
• Before you start modelling in Onshape, you should do some brainstorming with your team first. You'll not only need to decide on your blade design, but also on how many blades you'll need us to manufacture, and perhaps even whether each blade should be exactly the same. We recommend you draw some ideas on paper, so when the time comes you know what you need to model in Onshape. Your teacher may want to collect these drawings.
• Now, you should finally be ready to create your turbine blades in Onshape. Your whole team should participate here, so you have the best possible chance of completing what you want. The STEM Explorer staff will be available to help you out if you get stuck.
• Once you've finished your design, you should make a snapshot of it and submit it to the STEM Explorer team. (You'll also probably need to explain to us how many blades you'll need and so forth.) We will then manufacture everyone's turbine blades with our 3D printers; this part could take a long time, because we'll usually have a lot of things to print.
• Finally, we'll get your designs tested to see how well they work. Depending on what's possible, we may come to your school to try them out, let you watch us test them live over videoconference, or record video of the tests and send them to you along with the test data. How you'll wrap up your project after you have your test results is up to your teacher.