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UNION TWP. — With a statewide victory in hand, the Northwest Rangers are trekking to the Midwest as part of a global green-energy challenge.
A group of Northwest Area students won a statewide competition for their solar-energy project, a miniature house equipped with solar-panel powered lights, earlier this month. The competition, the high school division of the Pennsylvania KidWind Solar Challenge, was held at the State College campus of Pennsylvania State University on March 5. Its victory at the state-level competition qualifies the Northwest Area team for the World KidWind Challenge, an international competition to be held in Wisconsin later this spring.
“At the competition, not to toot our own horn, but we kind of knocked it out of the park,” said Chase Strunk, a Northwest Area senior and member of the engineering team that triumphed at the statewide competition. “Go us.”
Strunk, along with Northwest Area senior Collin Marvin and juniors Auria Daniels and Wyatt Orlowski, presented their award-winning project to the community during a school board meeting Thursday night. (Team members Kaylee Meeker and Paul Voyton, both Northwest Area seniors, were absent.)
Northwest Area engineering teacher Andy Bloom said he first learned about the KidWind Solar Challenge at a workshop training. He said he told his students about the challenge and they were enthusiastic about the chance for hands-on competition as he advised them on the project.
“They took it from there and they ran with it,” Bloom said after the group’s presentation Thursday.
During their presentation to the school board, the students detailed the logistics, engineering, and programming basics that make the house lights run, discussing the many hours of work required to design, build, and perfect their project. They said the house includes solar panels and solar-powered rechargeable batteries; light sensors; a blind system that moves and elevates based on the amount of life being received; a turbo motor governed by a micro controller and programming code.
“It’s a lot of wires,” Strunk said. “It’s quite the rats’ nest.”
The students described the competition setup at State College, with a rig of halogen lightbulbs shining on their model house and other solar projects to power them. A group of judges assessed each project’s performance, ultimately awarding Northwest Area first prize with a score of 96%.
“They did a really nice job,” Bloom said. “The judges at the competition said they did a very nice job and absolutely earned that 96.”
The students said the KidWind Challenges, which also include wind-power competitions, are meant to highlight the importance of developing technologies for renewable energy. The Northwest Area team reflected on that message at the competition and during their presentation Thursday.
“We got to give a whole spiel about green energy, because it’s a good thing. Energy is expensive. I don’t know my power bill, but I know it’s a lot, my dad complains,” Strunk said. “The whole point was to create something that could be used possibly in the future by many and across the whole nation to make life greener.”
After their presentation, the students reflected on the Northwest Area engineering program and the competition. They said they developed the project during class and worked through multiple lunch periods and study halls to prepare it for competition.
“It was kind of odd when he sprung this (competition) on us, but we like a good challenge,” Strunk said.
There is still work to be done ahead of their trip out to the Midwest for the international competition, which is scheduled to run from May 17 to May 20 in Madison at the University of Wisconsin. Bloom said the team will work to make some renovations to the house, adding new modifications before they take on the global challenge.
“They were a great group, they worked really hard on it,” Bloom said. “Hopefully, we can do just as well when we go out to Madison, Wisconsin.”
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