UNC Charlotte Wind Turbine Design Team

We are the UNC Charlotte Wind Turbine Design Team and our goal is to design and build a small-scale wind turbine and create a project development plan for a hypothetical wind farm for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Collegiate Wind Competition (CWC). This national competition and this year, UNC Charlotte is one of the 30 schools that were selected to compete.

Through this project, students gain hands-on experience in renewable energy by taking a turbine from a concept to completion by designing, testing, analyzing performance, and refining their system. Team members collaborate across engineering disciplines during the designing and testing phases of the project. Our team has developed technical skills while becoming familiar with starting an engineering project and following it through till completion.

2026 Turbine CAD Design

2026 Turbine Testing Model

Since the Charlotte Wind Turbine Design Team has successfully qualified for the 2026 Collegiate Wind Competition, we will travel to Penn State to compete against the other universities at the national level. Participation in CWC not only allows our team to design and build a turbine for competition, but also strengthens leadership, teamwork, and problem solving skills.

By raising funds, we aim to support the travel and stay at the CWC. Our goal is to continue qualifying for future competitions and to provide new members with valuable, hands-on experience in wind turbine design, testing, and national-level competition for years to come. The Travel Budget shown below comes out to be a total of $4750. This budget will support the nine students on the team with Gas, Food and Lodging for the competition.

Your donation will help cover the cost of expenses related to the Wind Turbine Design Team. 

You can double or triple the impact of your gift if your employer participates in a matching gift program.  To see if your employer has a matching gift program, click here. If your company matches, complete your matching gift form and submit it to UNC Charlotte via mail (UNC Charlotte Foundation, 9201 University City Boulevard, Charlotte, NC 28223), fax (704-687-7259) or email (mwinslow@charlotte.edu).