Engineering Design Process: Design a Windmill Test Rack for Testing the Electrical Output of a Windmill

The goal of this ETP is to engage students in a hands-on engineering project. This ETP is composed of two design challenges. The students should be divided into groups of 4. The students will collaborate and follow the steps used by professional engineers to design, build, and test a windmill using a windmill test rack. The students will research and brainstorm possible windmill designs and potential hardware and scientific tools for their windmill test rack; they will draw three sketches of their windmill and windmill test rack; they will design a 3-D rendering of the windmill and windmill test rack on Autodesk Inventor; they will design a physical windmill and windmill test rack prototype; and lastly, they will present their projects with visual aids to the class using PowerPoint and Excel, which are two commonly used software programs at Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company in Sunnyvale, CA, where I worked during Summer 2015.