Board 149: Development of an Educational Wind Turbine Troubleshooting and Safety Simulator

An NSF-ATE project is being developed building upon two previous projects: 1) “Wind Tech TV”, a 2010 ATE project which created a library of online training videos for wind turbine maintenance, and 2) "Mixed Reality Simulators for Wind Energy Education", a U.S. Department of Education FIPSE project which produced a series of simulators for wind energy education. The current project is integrating a library of real scenarios with existing simulators to allow students to have hands-on experiences that would otherwise be dangerous or impractical. It includes open-ended questions for students to learn critical thinking and problem solving. An interdisciplinary team including representatives from four community colleges (Kalamazoo Valley, Riverland, Ivy Tech, and Highland), a wind energy company (EDF Renewable), two ATE Centers (CA2VES & AMTEC), and a university research center (CIVS) are collaborating on this project. Some team members have worked together on various projects including the development of a variety of software for wind energy education and technician training. A leadership team consisting of the PIs and representatives from community colleges, industry, and ATE centers is overseeing the development and implementation of the project. Community colleges are leading the curriculum and educational module design and implementation for the simulator. Industry collaborators are advising on the skills needed in industry. CIVS is developing the simulator. Formative assessment throughout the project will enable cyclical improvements. Current status of the development and future plans are discussed.

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