Mineola Middle School Students Take Gold

On May 4^th , The Cradle of Aviation and National Grid hosted a KidWind Regional Competition. Middle school and High schools aged students from all over Nassau and Suffolk counties competed. The KidWind Challenge engages students in an open-ended competition to build small-scale wind turbines that demonstrate knowledge about the promise and limits of a wind-powered future. A team of students from Mineola Middle School designed and constructed a wind turbine that will create the greatest amount of electricity. Sounds easy … not quite. After two weeks of collaboration in designing, constructing and testing the wind turbine the students were proud of their design.

Once at the Cradle of Aviation the students had to present their design to a panel of judges from the Cradle of Aviation Museum and National Grid. The judges were very impressed with team Mineola’s ability to communicate their design. After a grueling 20 minutes of questioning team Mineola was able to test their design in one of three wind tunnels. Ready…Set…Go! When the wind started to blow the students observed that there was a serious problem.  The blades did not turn. With a few modifications they tested the turbine a second time.  Unfortunately, the same result occurred. The pressure is on, team Mineola has a total of fifteen minutes to assess and repair the turbine for the official trial.

After consulting with the team advisor, Vince Interrante, team Mineola went to work. Knowing that failure is not an option, team captains Ryan D and Ryan D called for a total reconstruction.  The disassembled the turbines gears and generator and reassembled the turbine with spare parts. The collaboration and communication between the team members was simply extraordinary.  To the amazement of the judges and officials of the competition, Team Mineola was ready.  Once in the wind tunnel, the 4-1 gear ration wind turbine worked like a charm.

Team Mineola won gold in the Middle School Division.