AIAA Conference Award Winners
By Dr. Ashok Gopalarathnam
April 21, 2008

The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) student conference for Region II was held in Cape Canaveral, FL March 31 and April 1. Our department was represented by 55 undergraduate AE students, plus myself as faculty advisor. Our students gave 11 presentations (out of a total of 71), including eight team presentations of AE senior projects and individual presentations by three AE undergraduate students.

I am happy to report that we placed well in the awards, winning first place in the “Freshman/Sophomore Open Topic” category and the first and third places in the “Design Team” category, as follows:

Freshman/Sophomore Open Topic, First Place
“Aerodynamic Heating and Deceleration in Atmospheric Entries” by Whitney Lohmeyer. Advisor: Prof. Fred DeJarnette

Design Team, First Place
“Development of an Alternative Launch Abort System for Project Orion” by Jon Rybacki (team leader), Keegan Brochu, Tim Cobb, and Aaron Morris. Instructor: Prof. Andre Mazzoleni

Design Team, Third Place
“The design, construction, and flight testing of a high-reliability UAV” by John Southwell (team leader), C.J. Soques, Matthew Sutton, Daniel Watts, Brian Millington, Chris Sanchez, Carla Faulkner, Josh Coltrane, Kyle Hojnacki, and Aaron Burns. Instructor: Prof. Chuck Hall

Congratulations to all the students and instructors!

(left to right) Jen Minin, Annitta Haywood, Whitney Lohmeyer

(left to right) Chris Venters, Jen Minin, Annitta Haywood, Kevin Wright

(left to right) Matt Sutton, Brian Millington