Team Story
Vision and Mission
Kansas State University’s Wildcat Wind Power, located in America’s heartland, is one of the only competing teams in our country’s “wind corridor”. We understand that continued wind development in our state will directly impact our communities, and we want to educate these communities about both the local and global benefits of wind energy. Our team is participating in the Collegiate Wind Competition to build the skill set of each team member in engineering design, manufacturing, and wind energy industry practices. We want to promote clean, renewable energy and develop future talent for the wind industry.
Background
We are a student-led extracurricular organization in the Carl R. Ice College of Engineering at Kansas State University. We recruit members from across the college and from other programs around campus. To ensure that we retain a diverse group of students, we recruit both younger and older, more experienced students. Our group has competed in theCWC for a number of years, and brings both continued design success and a renewed focus on community outreach to the 2022 competition. Membership is divided into electrical, mechanical, and project development sub-teams, each led by one or two team leads who direct the organization alongside a group of general officers. The club meets weekly as a full group for industry meetings, internal presentations, and discussion, while sub-teams host separate weekly meetings for design and testing.
Strategy
From a turbine design perspective, the team has significantly developed its ability to design effective control systems for turbines. This year, we plan to focus largely on the aerodynamic and structural aspects of the turbine design. This fits in well with the 2022 competition’s reduced focus on turbine controls, alongside the inclusion of the offshore foundation system. However, we still plan to improve our control systems from previous competitions with the introduction of a new rectifier and pitch system. From a project development standpoint, the team is transitioning towards the use of industry-standard tools to produce more accurate analysis, as well as recruiting members with stronger financial acumen.
We have been extremely fortunate to connect with many individuals across the wind industry this year. These connections have been beneficial both for the professional development of individual team members, and for the team as a whole. We have planned a set of outreach activities that will leverage these connections and the knowledge gained from them to educate our community about the wind industry.
