In the News: Newberg High School wind turbine tops them all

FFA national convention — One team returns home with first place, another finishes in upper echelon
Laurent Bonczijk, Newberg Graphic

INDIANAPOLIS — Two sophomores from Newberg High School took home first place in the engineering category of agriscience experiments during FFA’s national convention.

Aaron Morland, 15, and Brennan VandenHoek, 16, tested multiple wind turbine designs before building a four-bladed model in NHS’ machine shop. Morland said the pair tested to find the optimum blade pitch and angle. “We put a DC motor on the back of the blade shaft,” he said. They measured the different outputs as they tweaked their designs.

VandenHoek said he and Morland chose the engineering category “because I have a lot of knowledge when it comes to mechanical things. It is my forté.” He’s also part of NHS’ robotics team.

The team built the turbine of aluminum and discovered that the most effective way to improve efficiency was the use of quality bearings.
Their plan now is to build a larger scale model and possibly start selling some wind turbines. They used helicopter blades for their model and they’d like to build commercial ones salvaged from helicopters.

Both said that while they enjoyed their success, they will probably focus on sophomore public speaking this year rather than compete in another agriscience category.

Fellow sophomores Bijoux Doherty and Xander Reynolds, both 15, also participated in the national competition and earned a silver medal in the environmental science category for their experiment on soil erosion. Reynolds said he was inspired to study erosion on slopes after a family member started farming a steep slope.

Reynolds and Doherty had won state with their experiment last year and said the national competition was much stiffer. “If you want to be a national champion you have to do a really good experiment,” she said.