Increase power through design

Part 1: Prior knowledge and vocabulary

• Teacher assesses what students know, or think they know, about the lesson’s learning objectives. This skills inventory will guide teacher instruction during the remainder of the lesson. Students are introduced to the project’s working vocabulary.

Part 2: Analog data

• Students engage in a design challenge to design wind turbine blades that will enable a model wind turbine to generate the most power. Students use an engineer’s design process to design their wind turbine blades and construct prototypes. Students attach their blades to their model wind turbine and test them to see how much mass can be lifted with their configuration.

Part 3: Digital data

• Students breadboard electrical components and connect their model wind turbine to Excel for digital data visualization. Students use this digital platform to complete a second series of testing to determine the optimal blade angle for producing power. Students then compare observations of this digital data and analog data.

Part 4: Reflections

• Students finalize any unfinished components of the student journal. Students complete and discuss the Reflection Questions in the Student Journal.

• Mechanical engineering
• Electrical engineering
• Software engineering
• Data science