REFLECTION ON NATIONAL KIDWIND CHALLENGE 2022 IN SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS

As I head home to Chicago, I wanted to share a reflection to the staff at KidWind, about the National KidWind Challenge and the experiences we had being involved with this event.

It was amazing to view such imaginative ingenuity of students and their products from elementary school through college.  Just witnessing the results of so many students’ mindsets to solve problems related to energy generation makes me more hopeful for our future.  The future of the human species on this pale blue planet.

The absolute wealth of imagination, ideas, and problem-solving, that I witnessed at this KidWind event, is a true testament to the powerful influence that KidWind, as an organization, has upon education in the 21^st century.  Your efforts to pull together such a dynamic and inspiring engineering-based project will resonate for years to come with these students, teachers, and their schools!

Even after months of research, testing and problem-solving at our school, we had to faced-down several obstacles and challenges in the performance of our machine in the testing tunnels on Tuesday and Wednesday.  My students, experienced in manipulating their machine, were quick to diagnosis and brainstorm solutions.  Students and coaches faced down these problems, but it does generate a stressful situation that can only be successfully addressed with a calm and thoughtful response.

This was our first venture to the National KidWind Event, and I must admit I was really stressed out for a good portion of the time.  Even after 3 years of involvement in KidWind, I feel like I still stumble and bumble along sometimes and just guess as to what to do next.  With time, I know that this process becomes less hectic and more manageable, but it really tries my patience at times, to the breaking point.  I have been teaching for 27 years with education at the doctoral level, but this process, from the regional competition and through the national competition, taxes my ingenuity to its limit! 

Last year, students at St. Thomas participated in the virtual national event with two teams of 6^th grade students (11 students), but this year I had high hope for my top-flight 8^th grade team of two students to do well at this in-person event.  This year, I felt was the real test to see how we measure up with teams from across the nation after participating for three years with KidWind.

I have time now to reflect and analyze what we could have done better and what worked well.  It is a sobering effort, but it needs to be done to get better for next year.  I saw teams with a lot of technology employed in their design and then I saw team with the similar technology that our team had, but they surpass these high-tech studs.  It gets down to finding the sweet spot in design that delivers maximum performance (energy), while integrating blade design and gear ratios.  At the event this week, I saw superior blade design exceed benefits of the size of gear ratios.  Once a team consistently reaches the maximum output possible for the small KidWind turbine, then they can focus on delivering a superior judge presentation and doubling down on knowledge and experience of the challenges.

Thanks again for all your efforts and the time commitment to the KidWind organization.  I look forward to participating next year with a new group of students that will stretch their imaginations to the limit.  These are the essential 21^st century skills and abilities that our students need to master to successfully solve problems we face in energy production and in dealing with the social issues of our time.