Exploring Wind Energy at SENGI

The 2025 Summer Engineering Institute (SENGI) brought 63 high school students to the UMass Amherst campus for two weeks to learn more about engineering. Students participated in a mix of problem solving challenges, hands-on activities, and lectures. Every afternoon students spent two hours in one of the campus engineering labs, working on a more in-depth team based project. ARROW Director Prof. Sanjay Arwade taught students about offshore wind energy, and a wind-turbine lab challenged them to design the most powerful or most efficient turbine blades. In addition, students played “wind ball”, an activity designed by ARROW PhD student Peter Schimpf to teach them about the various components of wind turbines and how they function.