Teamwork and "try, try again" attitude wins the day at the 2023 Wind Blade Challenge
Apr. 23—LOWVILLE — In any good competition, a come-from-behind win — a "Hail Mary" pass, a half-court buzzer-beater basket, a Jeopardy contestant that wins on their final Jeopardy moxie — can be the best part. The 2023 BOCES Wind Blade Challenge, in its modest way, was no exception.
"We've never had this happen before because the first-place team actually had (a score of) zero (in the first testing round) because the wind blades never worked, so they went ahead and redesigned them and they must have done a good job," said the master of ceremonies for the event and instructor of the BOCES Engineering and Design Department, Walter J. Berwick Jr. "That's the first time somebody got a zero in the first try and came back and made a blade good enough to win. They realized what didn't work. They really changed a lot."
And that, he said — learning to make something with their hands and then, how to make it better — is the whole idea of the competition.
Five teams of 18 middle school students from three schools gathered at the Lewis County — Jefferson Community College Education Center on Friday morning to put their creativity, knowledge and critical thinking skills to the test by designing blades for a mini wind turbine using cardboard, paper, tape, glue and dowels.
Teams from Carthage Central Middle School — The Windy Team and The Blade — as well as the Wildcats from Adirondack Middle School, either hit major snags with their original designs with low or no score in the first round of testing for the blades' electricity generation and lift, or thought they could do better in their second round, causing them to reconsider their blade designs and make some changes.
The Blade members said they changed "basically everything" after scoring no points in the first round of tests, making their blades bigger and more "air catching" after, they said, they "learned from our mistakes."
"I think our first design was over complicated but this team is great. Literally everybody gets along and everybody works together... we could all compromise and everyone's ideas and stuff came together," said Cyris Baxter, 12, a member of The Blade team.
Two teams representing River Valley Mennonite School in Croghan — an all-boys team called The Kings and an all-girls team known as the Lionesses — were in first and second place, respectively, after they completed both rounds of testing performed and recorded by Mr. Berwick's students.
Both groups said they came into the competition with their designs already worked out and although they each wanted to win the competition, they were even more interested in beating each other.
The Kings placed second overall and the Lionesses, third, and the girls were not looking forward to the smack-talk expected to ensue on the ride home, they said with a laugh.
Members of the top three teams all received blue tooth speakers and the winning team members were given small drones made possible through event sponsors Avangrid Renewables.
Win or lose, many of the competitors said they enjoyed the team work, the challenge and the free cookies among other benefits.
"Even if we did lose, I still got to skip math class," said one, with all others within earshot adding their missed classes to the skip list.
For Mr. Berwick, the competition has the added benefit of being a recruiting tool for the engineering field in general but also to help grow his program that currently has only eight students primarily because students were unable to visit his class to see what the program was about — the main avenue students follow to his class — during the pandemic.
"I'm not sure how many students I'll get from this, but the whole idea is to get them to work together as a team. I teach teamwork and creativity and making something better," he said.
The Engineering and Design program has been educating juniors and seniors in the Carthage, Copenhagen, South Lewis, Lowville, Adirondack, Beaver River and town of Webb school districts for more than eight years.
