NASA Systems Engineering Award

NASA conducts an annual competition for a Systems Engineering Award, held in conjunction with the SAE Aero Design® Competition sponsored by the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE).

The contestants are teams of college students who design and construct radio-controlled model aircraft to vie for awards in three classes of flight competitions. The competition culminates in two, three-day flying events: Aero Design® West, being held in 2010 in Van Nuys, California, and Aero Design East®, being held in 2010 in Ft. Worth, Texas.

Participation in the NASA Systems Engineering Award competition is optional. It gives student teams participating in the SAE Aero Design® competition an opportunity to compete in applying best engineering practices. Winning teams receive a trophy and a $750 cash prize.

These practices are a subset of NASA Systems Engineering principles. The competing teams submit two written documents detailing the systematic tracking, control, and integration of the project’s design, construction, and testing.

Bob Pearce, Yuri Gawdiak, and George Price of the JPDO are acting for NASA in conducting this competition, including evaluation of Systems Engineering Reports from the participating teams.

For more information, go here.

NASA Systems Engineering Award Competition

NASA conducts an annual competition for a Systems Engineering Award, held in conjunction with the Aero Design® Competition sponsored by the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE).

The contestants are teams of college students who design and construct radio-controlled model aircraft to vie for awards in three classes of flight competitions. The competition culminates in two three-day flying events: Aero Design West, held this year in Van Nuys, California, and Aero Design East, held in Acworth, Georgia.

Participation in the NASA Systems Engineering Award competition is optional. It gives students participating in the SAE Aero Design competition an opportunity to compete in applying best engineering practices. Winning teams receive a trophy and $750 cash prize.

These practices are a subset of NASA Systems Engineering principles. The competing teams submit two written documents detailing the systematic tracking, control, and integration of the project’s design, construction, and testing.

Yuri Gawdiak and George Price of the JPDO acted for NASA in conducting this competition, including evaluation of Systems Engineering Reports from the 11 teams that chose to enter. Participating teams came from Canada, Brazil, India, and the U.S., including Puerto Rico.

The winner of the West competition was the team from the École de Technologie Supérieure of Montreal, Canada. First place in the East competition was a tie between teams from the University of Cincinnati and the Escola Politecnica Universidade de São Paulo (Brazil), with an Honorable Mention for the Sri Bhagawan Mahaveer Jain College of Engineering (India) team.

George Price represented NASA in conferring the awards at the Aero Design East event on April 5, 2009. The flight competition provided some exciting moments, as aircraft in the payload competition staggered to lift off in the prescribed runway distance, and others barely avoided – or didn’t avoid – collisions with the ground as they flew the required circuits. Perhaps the most interesting aspect was the wide variety of innovative designs created by the student teams, including biplanes, flying wings, and other unconventional concepts. Most gratifying was the enthusiasm, talent, and camaraderie demonstrated by future engineers from all over the world.

Check out pictures from the event here, on the JPDO Facebook page.