2024 World KidWind Challenge Highlights: A Showcase of Student Creativity and Wind Energy at its Best! 

The 2024 World KidWind Challenge took place from May 5 to May 8 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, attracting 95 student teams from 21 states in the U.S., as well as Taiwan and Mexico. This year’s event was hosted by the American Clean Energy Expo and ran concurrently with the Collegiate Wind Competition. We were thrilled to present an exciting event in Minnesota! A big thank you to the coaches, parents, administrators, and students for their hard work, which made it possible for them to participate in this world competition and demonstrate their determination and resilience during the three-day event.

Each team approached this year’s particularly challenging competition with enthusiasm, determination, and innovative thinking! This year, wind teams tested their turbines in low, medium, and high-speed wind tunnels and experimented with our rotating wind tunnel, which rotates the turbine 90 degrees mid-test! Additionally, high school wind teams had to tackle our new wind tunnel, known as the Anderson Annihilator. This new wind tunnel, invented and built by Mr. Dick Anderson from Wisconsin, allows wind speeds to be adjusted from 0 to 10 m/s. Teams performed two tests here: one to measure the turbine’s output and another to test the turbine’s durability in ultra-high-speed winds.

As usual, each team presented their designs and processes to the judges and participated in various instant challenges. Elementary teams attempted to build vertical axis wind turbines, while middle school teams tried to construct the tallest tower possible, using our popular Firefly model. All teams participated in the wind turbine siting challenge. In addition, high school and middle school teams engaged in advanced data analysis focusing on energy efficiency. Finally, teams competed in a quiz to test their knowledge of renewable energy.