Aero Students Sweep Competition at AIAA Conference

A group of twenty-eight undergraduate and graduate aerospace students traveled to the 2010 AIAA Regional I-MA conference in Blacksburg, VA at the campus of Virgina Tech on the weekend of April 9-11. Students presented papers on various research projects and as luck and hard work would have it, the University of Maryland swept the competition, snapping up first and second places in the undergraduate research category as well as first, second and third place in the graduate category. Justin Brannan and a fellow student, for example, presented papers on the two research projects they conducted while at the Mars Desert Research Station(MDRS) and were awarded first place in the Master's category for the development and field testing of the prototype geological toolkit (a potential astronaut hand tool). As a result of the first place award, the research will be presented at the International level next January. Results of the competition (below) illustrate the level of effort and quality of work presented by UMCP aero students: Undergraduate Category:

  1. Teju Jarugumilli:
    • Experimental Optimization and Performance Analysis of a MAV Scale Cycloidal Rotor

  2. Brandon Hall:

    • Lunar Regolith In Situ Resource Utilization: Applications in Dust Mitigation and Vacuum Pyrolysis

Graduate Category:

  1. Justin Brannan 
    • Mars Analog Aerial Mapping for Planetary Geology Applications

  2. Cyrus Abdollahi

    • Dynamic Testing and System Identification of a Statically Unstable Wind Tunnel Model

  3. Harinder Singh

    • Semi-Active Optimal Control of Vertically Stroking Crew Seats for Enhanced Shock Mitigation

 

      For more information on the recent Regional I-MA conference visit the AIAA conference

website

    .

Published April 12, 2010