The team of Aneeqa Karu, Pavel Lelyukh and Jim Napoli, were able to create an environmentally friendly wind turbine that was also safe to the wild life; after being rewarded $10,000 from PECO, they plan to use this money to further their Wind Catcher and build a prototype.
Christine M. Delahanty, the associate Professor of Engineering science, technology, and math motivated her students to go ahead with the Wind Catcher max project. Delahanty was asked, out of all the ideas, how did your students come up with the Wind Catcher max? She replied, “A student of mine [Paul Lelyukh] came up with it a year ago. He investigated an alternative energy source. I told Paul to go with the idea. Six months later, a seventy-two-part design of wind power was created.”
The Wind Catcher Max is said to be a new style of wind turbine that takes up less space, does not threaten wildlife, and recycles water. When asked if Delahanty could elaborate more on the topic, she replied, “The Wind Catcher Max is a wind tower that is designed to maximize energy output at a lower cost than standard wind turbines or solar panels. It takes up much less space than solar panels and is not harmful to wild life like standard wind turbines.”
Throughout this whole journey of creating the Wind Catcher Max, many students showed that they are capable of working together and showed excellent teamwork. Delahanty expanded on how this group of people showed great teamwork stating, “The videography students of the Arts Department, under the direction of their professor, Stanley Timek, were kind enough to shoot, and produce a 90 second video for the online entry to the 2016 NSF Innovation Challenge. The students were very helpful to the team. We are grateful for this wonderful collaboration. Their video helped the students make the final round of the challenge, which included the top 10 teams out of 75 entries. As a result, the students went to a boot camp in Arlington, VA and presented their Innovation on Capitol Hill.”
After the group of students entered their project into the NSF challenge, they were able to receive a grant from PECO. When questioned on what she plans to do with the ten thousand dollar grant to further the project, she replied, “We plan to investigate the physics of the structure and study its feasibility. [We plan to] investigate the fluid dynamics. In addition, [our students] are very excited to be collaborating with the business students. We hope to create a workable prototype.”
Lastly, one of the main reasons why the Wind Catcher was created was to hopefully gain awareness and garner creative outlets for Bucks students. Delahanty stated, “[We entered] the start me up challenge, to gain interest in businesses. It also creates awareness that students can perform outside of their curriculum. In addition, it was a real world study of innovation.