Twelve students from the Department of Mechanical Engineering and the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Clemson University are participating in the 2015-2016 Boeing AerosPACE program. The AerosPACE is a multi-disciplinary, multi-university collaborative capstone program bringing together stakeholders from industry, academia and government to build core competencies for the next generation of aerospace innovators in a sociotechnical, collaborative environment founded in the learning sciences.
This year, teams are comprised of students and faculty from Brigham Young University (BYU), Clemson University, Everett Community College (EVCC), Georgia Institute of Technology (GT), Purdue University, Tuskegee University, Washington State University (WSU), and WSU – Everett and different majors will collaborate to design, build, and fly a scouting and inspection unmanned aircraft system (UAS).
Collaboration between students at different universities is a major theme of the project. It is expected each design will address technical areas of aerodynamics, materials, propulsion, manufacturing, structures, sensors, and controls among others. Manufacture of each team’s UAS will be distributed among students at each university and assembled at a single location. AerosPACE is truly a hands-on engineering experience.