University of Guelph WindENG competition
Submitted by: Liliane Ethier, MNO Temiskaming Métis Council
Information from: Temiskaming Métis News
Nikiann Brideau and classmates with their winning wind blade design.
Métis Grade 11 student Nikiann Brideau, granddaughter of the Métis Nation of Ontario Temiskaming Métis Council President Liliane Dupuis Ethier, recently competed in the University of Guelph’s WindENG wind energy competition.
On April 30, Brideau and her team of classmates from Eastdale Secondary School won first place for most innovative design for their single-bladed turbine.
WindENG is an annual high school design competition. The task consists of constructing an energy generating wind turbine that uses a DC motor as the generator. Students from 24 schools from Kingston to Toronto to Windsor showed off their designs for energy-generating wind turbines and competed for cash prizes.
Brideau’s team’s single-bladed design produced about three watts of power and the double-bladed system produced about 10 watts.
The school sent two teams of six students to the university. Each created a video explaining the design of the windmill. They later tested their designs in the university’s wind tunnel.
Nikiann Brideau (right) and classmate working on their WindEng single-bladed
turbine.
Brideau said each team created its own video and each took about 30 hours to complete.
“We know from competing in previous years that a lot of teams don’t really focus on the video, so if we did we could show them we knew our stuff through our videos,” she said.
One of the videos was a stop-motion video and the other a hand-drawn animation film comprising 2,000 still images.