Colorado High School · Harold Sowa · March 31, 2026
Project Overview
Our turbine features a vertical stacked dual-nacelle design with a custom 32:1 gear ratio built to produce the most joules possible in competition conditions. We tested polyplastic, wide PVC, and small PVC blades across multiple trials and selected heat-curved polyplastic as our primary blade for its lighter weight and higher spin speed, while keeping PVC as a backup for slower wind tunnels. The project is finished with a hand-painted offshore wind farm theme to represent the future of renewable energy and the real-world industry behind it.
Key Metrics
Wind Speed (m/s)
5
Rotor Swept Area (cm2)
1545
Resistor Value (ohms)
30
Output voltage (V)
25