Benjamin Kunkov's Personal Portfolio

Welcome to my portfolio!
This portfolio highlights my work in 3D design, FPV drones, and music.

Scroll to explore, or use the buttons below to jump between sections.

• About

• KidWind

• Blender Art

• FPV Drones

• Music

About Me

I'm Benjamin Kunkov, but people call me Ben. I'm 17 years old and finishing up high school. As you will see, I have great interests in art, engineering, and music; more recently, I've been interested in finance and the business world. Some fun facts about me are that I can speak Russian fluently and I can type at 150 WPM!Currently reading: After Midnight by Daphne Du Maurier.
Currently learning: Waltz in C-Sharp Minor by Chopin (Piano).
Currently building: An automated liquidity-provision program for various markets.

KidWind Team

Perhaps the project I am most proud of is founding and leading the most successful KidWind team in West Texas, Patriot Energy. It is a school club and I have plans to pass it down once I graduate.

What is KidWind?

KidWind is an organization that runs renewable energy engineering competitions worldwide. Each year, my team designs and builds a fully functional model wind turbine and competes against other teams. The main event is a wind-tunnel test, where turbines are judged on how much power they produce. Teams are also scored on surprise engineering challenges, like energy debates, building an offshore turbine, and technical quizzes, which test knowledge of engineering, energy systems, and policy.

Honors

Two-time Regional Champions, reaching World Finals twice (2024–2025).
1st place in every category (2025).
2nd place international quizbowl (2024).

What is have you built?

• Patriot Energy Website

Our website has everything you need to learn about our team; some images are below to help you get an idea of what our turbine looks like. learn more

(From left to right) Our turbine spinning in a wind tunnel; welding the tower; advanced metal gearing system; designing the blade in Blender; new large-area blades.

Below are my favorite 3D-rendered projects, both still and animated.

300+ hours | 2021 - Present

Still (click to enlarge)

Animated (click to play) – 17 Projects in 1 Reel

About Blender

This art is made with Blender, a free and open-source program that allows you to create anything under the sun! You can draw, animate, sculpt, edit, track, model, and color grade to name a few things. It was all created by me (no AI), solo.

Is this all you do with Blender?

Beyond art, I use Blender for engineering projects, whether it's a designing a lunar lander or adjusting a turbine blade. Recently, I've been using Blender to reshape and design custom turbine blades so they fit onto our turbine hub used for the KidWind competition.

What's next?

I hope to keep making art and explore different avenues, especially during college. I'll keep using it both as a creative outlet and as a tool for engineering design.

Below are two on-board videos from my different FPV drones.

150+ hours | 2023 - Present

5-inch freestyle drone (on-board sound) – Nazgul5

75mm whoop drone (no sound)– Mobula 7

5-inch propellor freestyle drone

This 1-foot long, 450 gram drone is the biggest and most powerful one in my collection. It's also the most tinkered-with and adjustable; I learned to solder and program in a new language to tune the drone to my liking. The above image highlights some of the hardware upgrades I've done to the drone.

Some more specs

75mm propellor whoop drone (5-inch for scale)

Yes, it's tiny. But it was my first-ever drone and served as an incredible training tool. It's nearly impossible to upgrade, but that means it's nearly impossible to break. It's safe, reliable, and a bunch of fun to play around with. It's top speed is around 35mph and uses 1s lipos.

What is FPV flying?

FPV flying, or first-person view flying, is when you pilot a drone using a headset or screen that shows the live video feed from a camera mounted on the drone. Instead of just watching it from the ground, you see what the drone “sees,” almost like you’re sitting inside it. It makes flying feel immersive and precise, which is why people use it for racing, freestyle tricks, or filming smooth cinematic shots. Personally, I use FPV to race my friends and freestyle around town. You can learn more here.

Music Performance & Production

1000+ hours (combined instruments) | 2016 - Present

I've been playing the piano since I was eight years old, and the alto sax since I was eleven.
Honors: I earned a 1st place state title for solo woodwind performance (saxophone) as well as 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th place titles for ensemble performance over six years (TAPPS).
My earliest memories were of me dancing to the Beatles—I always had a love for all things music, and it's something I wish to continue through college and beyond!

Music Production

I write, produce, and perform music on the side for fun. In 2024, I had one of the songs I made published under the penname of Finn Blackwood (to protect my privacy).
Click to listen to it below!

Below is a screenshot of some channels in Logic Pro, the software I used to produce Seen You Smile.
The piano parts were played by me and fed through to the software.

All work by Benjamin Kunkov. These projects were created independently as personal and exploratory work.

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