Seminar: Hands-on Learning in Aerospace Laboratory Courses - Dec. 11
Trudy Schwartz
Senior Instructor and Lab Manager, Smead Aerospace
Wednesday, Dec. 11 | 2:30 P.M. | AERO 114
Abstract: In the Smead Aerospace Engineering Sciences department hands-on learning is a significant component of the curriculum. At the undergraduate level, the program has 60+ laboratory exercises comprised of a variety of labs that reinforce the engineering fundamentals related to aerospace in the areas of materials, structures, dynamics, control, thermodynamics, aerodynamics, vehicle design, orbital mechanics, electronics and instrumentation. Some labs are purely software or computational, others require hardware for testing and experimentation, while some require students to design an engineering solution to a proposed problem. My lead role, with the help of my cohort instructor and fellow AES Electronics Shop lab manager Bobby Hodgkinson, is to provide the technical advice, resources, implementation, maintenance, and improvements for all of these hands-on activities through a team of dedicated Aerospace students working as laboratory assistants.
This seminar will present how we in the labs team deliver this hands-on intensive curriculum that is one of the distinguishing characteristics of the highly-ranked Smead Aerospace degree program, how we strive to continuously improve the hands-on activities to maintain the standards of the original curriculum despite the growth, and how we are increasing our students' exposure to current technology/techniques that will suit them well in the workforce.