Virginia Girl Wins National Wind Energy Design Competition

CHANTILLY, VA — A 9-year-old girl from Chantilly with an interest in environmental issues won a national renewable energy contest by building a wind energy turbine that generates electricity.

Pranamya Jindal, who will be starting fifth grade later this month at Cardinal Ridge Elementary School in Loudoun County, won first place in the elementary-school division of the 2021 National KidWind Challenge.

The 2021 KidWind Challenge was held virtually for the second year in a row due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The organizers are hoping to hold the competition in person in 2022.

For the 2021 challenge, the winners were announced one by one on a Zoom call in June. "I was really shocked and surprised when I found out I had won," Pranamya said in an interview with Patch. "I literally turned the camera off of me and started dancing."

With her mother, Richa Jindal, serving as her coach, Pranamya entered the KidWind Challenge under the team name Nature Wings. The annual competition, which was first held in 2003, is an effort where young people test their knowledge of renewable energy.

“I really like doing project-based learning,” Pranamya said, explaining her reason for participating in the challenge.

Prior to participating in the KidWind Challenge, Pranamya said she completed a project on the Great Barrier Reef, "showing how it is getting polluted and how we should keep it cleaner."

“I enjoy doing these environment-based projects," she said.

Many organizations have helped to sponsor the KidWind Challenge. Since 2015, Dominion Energy has supported the KidWind Virginia challenge with grants totaling $105,000.

Dominion is developing a massive offshore wind energy facility off the coast of Virginia Beach. The 2.6-gigawatt Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project, the largest planned offshore wind farm in the United States, is scheduled to come online in 2026.

Pranamya said she and her mother learned about the KidWind Challenge by watching online videos. They quickly decided to submit an application for Pranamya to participate in the challenge.

For the 2022 challenge, Pranamya said she plans to participate in both the wind and solar contests of the competition. "I'm looking forward to it already and preparing for it already," she said.

Pranamya used the wind blowing from a fan in her house to test the wind turbine she developed for the project. She then took measurements of the wind speed and the power output from the turbine.

For the final version of the project, the turbine blades were made of thin cardboard. The team at the KidWind Challenge provided Pranamya with the parts to create the gearbox portion of the wind turbine. And then she used PVC pipe to construct the tower and base.

"I wrapped my tower in pink to represent girls in STEM [science, technology, engineering and mathematics]," she explained during the interview. "Most of the other teams had boys in them, so I really felt like I needed to do that girls-in-STEM representation."

While serving as her daughter’s coach, Richa Jindal told Patch she learned the importance of letting kids learn independently and providing them with a platform to make a difference in real-world problems.

"My mom motivated me and helped me a lot," said Pranamya, who said it took her two months to put together the turbine and design the blades.

Pranamya had to learn how to calculate gear ratio, blade pitch control and other aspects of wind energy development. She also had to spend hours compiling the data from the wind turbine and participate in a math challenge and other competitions as part of the 2021 KidWind Challenge.

Along with a love for science and math, Pranamya, who turns 10 in November, said she enjoys art and writing poetry. She also has participated in a speech contest for the past three years, where she has to write a speech and then give the speech in front of a small audience. She's won the speech contest each year.

For her Team Nature Wings project, Pranamya won the regionals, which allowed her to participate in the national competition. The Center for the Advancement of Sustainable Energy, or CASE, at James Madison University in Harrisonburg oversaw the regional competition for the KidWind Challenge.

Remy Pangle, education manager at CASE, and Grace Mauro, the organization's events and communications manager, organized weekly workshops to help the participants in the KidWind Challenge.

"She showed a level of enthusiasm for experimentation and problem-solving that we only see once every couple years by students who participate in the KidWind Challenge competitions," Mauro said in an email to Patch.

At the open labs held by CASE, Pranamya asked questions about the design of her wind turbine.

"We see a lot of enthusiasm from students her age, especially girls, at our competitions, but her prowess truly stands out," Mauro said. "She is an incredible scientist, and we’re excited to continue watching her grow."