Tuesday, June 17, 2025
SALINA – On Saturday, April 6, 2025, Beloit Junior Senior High School had two teams of students participating in the State Kid Wind Challenge in Salina and both teams will be moving on to the World Kidwind competition in Phoenix, AZ, May 18-21.
To qualify for the state event, the teams had to place in the top two in their age division at their regional event which was held in Manhattan this past month and both the 6th-8th grade team of Charlotte Norton, Emmery Manning, Alison Goddard, Oakleigh Adams, and Madysen Stillwell and the 9th-12th grade team of Colby Albert, Tripp Stillwell, Brylee Lepon and Rilee Lundine brought home first that day at regionals sending them to state. There were six regional events bringing their top two teams in each age division to State Kidwind so there was a total of 12 teams in each division at state.
To prepare for competition, the teams study wind power. Then they build a turbine using the design and materials of their choice. During the challenge, each team’s turbine is put to the test in a 48″ × 48″ wind tunnel at a wind speed of approximately 3.5-5 meters per second (m/s). The students are scored on their knowledge of wind energy for 10pts, a judge’s interview worth 40pts, an instant challenge worth 10pts, and their performance in the wind tunnel worth 40pts. The combined score of a maximum of 100pts determines the top two teams at the event.
The 6th-8th grade division team of Madysen, Oakleigh, Alison, Emmery, and Charlotte brought home third place at state. They did extremely well in the performance tunnel, breaking our junior high record of the most Joules produced in 30 seconds, and had the best tunnel results of the day. However, there was a very close competition in the end between three teams and our girls ended up with third place. The first place team from Nemaha had 86.67pts, second place from Oakley had 85.67 pts, and the Beloit team had 85.50pts. These girls received an invite to the World Kidwind competition because the top three teams were so close, so they are looking forward to attending World Kidwind in Phoenix in May. The 9th-12th grade team of Tripp Stillwell, Brylee Lepon, Rilee Lundine, and Colby Albert brought home second place at state qualifying them for the World Kidwind event.
The students are already talking about how they are going to make more changes to make their turbine even better by then. This is such a great learning experience for these students to problem solve and collaborate together. If you would like to sponsor these kids to make this trip possible for them, please let Grant Deneke or Christie Fouts know and they will get you more details on the levels of sponsorship and what each level entails. Their contact information is gdeneke@usd273.org or cfouts@usd273.org
