STUDENT ORGANIZATIONS

SAE Heavy Lift Design Team
The SAE professional society sponsors a national competition in which student teams design, build, and fly a remotely controlled aircraft. The goal of the contest is to carry the maximum payload. The team receives a score based upon their written report, their oral presentation, and their flight results. The 1997 competition fly off was in Daytona Beach Florida and 25 teams participated. The KU Aerospace Engineering team was led by a Alex Ewing, their senior advisor and Professor Ray Taghavi their faculty advisor. Other team members were Josh Montgomery and Mick, all juniors. This team won 5th place! This is all the more remarkable in that most teams were senior and graduate students and this competition was their primary senior design activity. For our students, this was a preparation for their senior design education. The aircraft fabrication costs and team travel expenses to the competition were partially funded by alumni contributions.

Learned Engineers
The School of Engineering Learned Club was awarded a grant to support the visits by students and faculty to local high schools to encourage students to consider careers in science and engineering.

Society of Women Engineers
http://www.engr.ku.edu/swe/
The KU Student Chapter of the Society of Women Engineers was awarded a grant to support their "Day at The University of Kansas" for junior and senior high female students. During this event, the students and their advisors were briefed by School of Engineering faculty members, toured the School's laboratories, and attended a luncheon meeting. A highlight of the luncheon meeting was the presentation by a successful woman engineer.

Kansas Design Team
A grant was awarded to the Kansas Design Team to partially support the construction of a vehicle that will be submitted in the 1998 NASA/FAA AGATE General Aviation Design-Build-Fly Competition.