Modular Wind Tunnel for STEM Education

This project just won first place in MakerWorld's Physics Education contest! I'm honored – thank you. Major Update - 21 Jan 2025:

- The Modular Wind Tunnel for STEM Education and all of its accessories are now FREE and published under a license more amenable to community contributions.

- I am doing this in an effort to maximize the reach of the project – I'd love to see the project grow into more applications: homes, classrooms, makerspaces, etc. The more we can get kids participating, the better!

- I greatly appreciate all of those who have purchased the designs from my Printables Store and I am especially grateful to my Club members for their ongoing support. Your support has allowed me to recover my initial investments in a new printer, hardware, and (lots of) filament for testing, and has supported my ongoing work for development of new additions – still coming!

- Please recognize that my making the project free going forward is not meant to devalue those who have chosen to purchase initially or recently – I am grateful for your support!

- I will keep my Printables Club open as a way for you to monetarily support my work. Designs I am working on in “beta” status – such as the forthcoming force balances, new LabPacks, and a control panel – will be posted soon as Club downloads as an additional incentive.

- I will reserve the right to post future accessories as paid Store downloads or Club exclusives, but my intent for now is to pivot toward a more-open model in general for my STEM projects.

- Commercial licensing is still available upon request – reach out privately.

Also:

- I recently presented a report on this project to the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics at the SCITECH 2025 conference in Orlando. You can download a copy of my paper and/or presentation here!

UPDATE 1/15/2025: Wow! The initial response to this posting has been thrilling. Thank you for all of your kind comments and boosts.

NEW! For those who wish to contribute compatible modules, components, test articles, etc for community use can now so as a remix to this new model, which provides the necessary remixable license alongside reference design files (F3D and STEP) for the project's four most-critical interfaces:

- Large duct

- Small duct

- Test section wall module

- Gridfinity test article base.

I can't wait to see what the community adds to this effort. Thanks again for your support!

Boost MeIf you like this project and would like to support my efforts to continue its development, please consider a download, print, and boost! It really helps subsidize my costs and keeps me excited knowing I have your support!Project Introduction

This is a major design project for a functional, interactive, modular low-speed wind tunnel designed entirely around FDM/FFF 3D printing.

As a high-speed aerodynamics research engineer professionally, I am always interested in getting more kids excited about science, engineering, and math (STEM).

I designed this wind tunnel principally as a platform for rich STEM play and exploration for my two daughters (ages 3 and 7). I hope to teach them about what I do and to engage their scientific curiosity.

In addition to play at home, I also plan to offer demonstrations to their Girl Scout troops and science classes. By posting it for public use here, I hope that others will find creative ways to reach the kids in their own lives and communities. With luck, perhaps we’ll get a few more kids excited about science and engineering!

With these use cases as the primary motivation, I designed this project to optimize for fun, educational value, ease of use, and safety; it is not intended to be a high-performance or highly-accurate research instrument. That said, the design was broadly informed by many relevant best-practices and guidelines used in larger, active wind tunnel research and test facilities.

The project description below is organized as follows:

- Printer Requirements - required build volumes and recommendations

- Low-Speed In-Draft Wind Tunnel Overview - a brief guide to tunnel components, flow diagnostics, and operation

- Modular Test Articles and Support Adapters - a description of the included aerodynamic test articles and fixtures for various popular objects and toys - Additional test articles and accessories will follow as separate models on my account.

- Major Tunnel Components to Print - a high-level overview of the parts required for minimally-viable and fully-configured builds

- Approximate Cost Estimate - a cost estimate for filament usage and recommended hardware/accessories

- Components for Purchase - A complete list of recommended purchases for hardware, diagnostics, and recommended accessories