Our BHS Environmental Science students are competing in the NE regional KS Kid Wind challenge. The Kid Wind challenge started off in 2009, it is an event that allows students to explore the power of wind by building and testing their own wind turbines and competing against other teams in their age division. 

“When I had this class I thought this was a great opportunity to put the work that our students were learning about renewable energy, toward a kinda fun challenges setting,” teacher Drew Ising said. “The most important skill is curiosity, you have to be willing to try something and fail and let that kinda make you to learn more about it, if you give up everytime something doesn’t work the wind turbine model will make it not very fun.”

The BHS students involved in this were split into three teams starting with the Ener-geazy who received 3rd place: Micah Reynolds, Abby Patterson, Gabriele McBride, Sarah Haffner. The Airbenders earned 2nd place: Sophie Baker, Jennifer Eberhart, Anna Schaaf, Jada New. And the Zephyr were 1st place: Leonie Klingbeil, Tatum Davidson, Sarah Haffner, Dayton Peterson, Wesley Martin.

“It could be made out of anything,” Ising said. “You just have to use a certain motor, everyone  has the same motor so it has the same basic amount of energy that it could create if you do the best possible job.” 

These BHS students have been very creative with making their wind turbines. On April 2, they went to Topeka for the state challenge.

“I honestly had no idea that our team, and the other team from our school, would make it this far,” senior Sophie Baker said. “It was fun to make it to state and I am excited.”

To Baker her favorite thing about competing is to go with all her classmates, experience this for the first time and have fun. 

“The hardest challenge my team has faced so far is having our final product fail on us the week before regionals, so we had to come up with a new product during the last week leading up to regionals,” Baker said.

The team got ready for state and made sure they had everything they needed.

“Our team finished in 9th and 10th out of 16,” Ising said. “They improved in every category of the competition compared to the regional competition, so that was good to see.”