Ladies and gentlemen: Start your turbines!

What do Winds of Change, Spin City, The Wind Authority, Bladerunner Energy and Engineering Anemos have in common?  

All are the names of wind turbine “companies” started by engineering freshmen that were recognized last month during an end-of-the-semester design awards ceremony.

The yearly event is held to celebrate the accomplishments of about 450 first-year engineering students who have completed a class called “Engineering Principles,” or EAS 140.

“The wind turbine design is the last of three alternative-energy team projects in the course,” says William G. Wild Jr., director of student excellence initiatives and the first year experience in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. “Students present a briefing of their company’s wind turbine design to a panel that includes outside reviewers ranging from the SEAS dean to representatives from First Wind, the company that manages the local large-scale Steel Winds wind power site in Hamburg and Lackawanna along Lake Erie.”

Twelve teams out of about 130 were recognized for their outstanding combination of engineering design process, innovation, turbine performance and final report presentation. Each team member received a certificate, billed by Wild as “the first resume-worthy recognition you can win during your undergraduate years at UB engineering.” Groups also received a box of windmill cookies and were told “to divvy it up” amongst themselves using skills they learned as being part of a team.

A special distinction, called the “UB Blue 'Taking it to the Next Level' Design Award,” went to the Green Meteor Technologies team that devised a control system that automatically adapts the angle of the turbine blades to maximize energy output under changing conditions.

In addition to the certificates and cookies, “Next Level” winners received tickets to an upcoming UB Bulls basketball game, donated by an anonymous outside reviewer of the projects.

The final award was for design aesthetics — dubbed the “sexiest” turbine award — and brought 18 self-nominated contestants to the stage. The winner was chosen via the applause-meter system. After narrowing down the field to four entries, Windkraft emerged as the winner.

The final event was a short “Deleted Scenes” video that provided a humorous take on the final intense week of student presentations and panel reviews.

“The class provides an opportunity for freshmen to think through real-world problems, such as renewable energy, from an engineering perspective early in their academic careers,” says Dean Liesl Folks. “It introduces them to the fundamental principles used in engineering analysis and design, as well as aspects of professionalism such as ethics and project team management.”

The “Engineering Principles” class is required for all engineering freshmen and is part of SEAS’s Student Excellence Initiatives.

Wild joined SEAS in 1998 and established the Student Excellence Initiatives to improve engineering student retention and quality. To this end, a wide range of activities have been created, including academic small groups in calculus, chemistry and physics for engineering students; new first-year introductory engineering courses, such as a revised EAS 140 and EAS 202 “Engineering Impact on Society”; a faculty-student mentoring program; and an upperclassman “student leader” cadre to mentor the freshman project teams. 

“The initiatives Bill developed have helped us to create a small school atmosphere at a large public university,” says Mark Karwan, professor of industrial and systems engineering and a course instructor, who during his tenure as SEAS dean charged Wild with developing the program.

Since the program began, graduation rates for engineering students have increased by a factor of about 2/3.

In addition to Wild and Karwan, Gary Dargush, professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering and SEAS associate dean for graduate education and research, and Jennifer Zirnheld, assistant professor of electrical engineering, taught the course during the fall semester.