“Undergraduate students simply do not study aerodynamics at the level needed to fully understand the operation of wind turbines,” said Bill Gressick, the lead research specialist at Rensselaer’s Center for Automation Technologies and Systems. “The team members thoroughly impressed me with their ability to overcome all obstacles.”

And overcome they did. Given a narrow, technical focus, an international team of seven Rensselaer students completely reframed their Multidisciplinary Design Laboratory (MDL) project—and came up with five concepts that may one day increase the efficiency of wind turbines...

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