Aerospace Engineering – Design Across the Curriculum
C. D. Hall, N. Hovakimyan, W. H. Mason, and M. Patil
Project Description
Undergraduate Aerospace Engineering (AE) curricula are continually evolving,
frequently in response to perceived changes in the industry’s needs. However, most AE
curricula continue to reflect the well-established paradigm of first establishing a
foundation of engineering science skills, and only then introducing the professional skills
required of practicing aerospace engineers. This finishing typically takes place in the
senior year capstone design course, where students work in teams to design aerospace
vehicles. This course covers many of the most important skills our graduates require,
such as communications, multidisciplinary interactions, critical thinking, and teamwork.
Many universities, including Virginia Tech, now incorporate many of these topics into
the freshman year through a common first-year curriculum. However, the sophomore and
junior years remain focused on the engineering science elements of the curriculum and
most students are not involved in any project-oriented education during these two years.
The goal of this program is to prepare a detailed plan to distribute the introduction of
these project-oriented concepts throughout the curriculum by incorporating team design
projects in every year of the undergraduate curriculum. The plan will include a specific
assessment plan intended to determine the effectiveness of the implementation.
The Current AE Curriculum
At present the AE curriculum is a 136-credit four-year program including a common
engineering freshman program administered by the Department of Engineering
Education. Students declare their AE major in the Spring semester of the freshman year,
and begin the AE curriculum in the Fall semester of the sophomore year. The specific
courses in the curriculum are shown in Fig. 1, excluding the elective courses. In the
figure, each vertical column denotes one semester, beginning with Fall semester of the
sophomore year. The horizontal groupings are organized as follows: the top group
includes general courses, culminating in the senior capstone design course; the second
group includes all the engineering science courses in the fluids area; the third group
includes the courses in the structures area; and the fourth group includes the courses in
the dynamics and control area. This figure illustrates the courses taken by AE students
intending to complete an aircraft capstone design project; a slightly different track is
followed by students intending to complete a spacecraft capstone design project.
Reference 6 describes the aircraft design program in detail, and Ref. 4 describes the
spacecraft design program.
During the freshman year, students complete at least one significant team project each
semester. In the second semester, some students are permitted to participate in an AE
senior design project in lieu of the usual project with their classmates. There are typically
about 10-15 freshmen participating in the 6-10 senior design projects along with the
approximately 90 seniors. We have observed that approximately 50% of these freshmen
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are women, whereas the female enrollment is significantly less than 50%. Furthermore,
these students typically maintain a high level of interest in extracurricular activities
throughout their undergraduate program. For example, they might participate in projects
such as the Aircraft Design-Build-Fly competition, for which no course credit is received.
When these students become seniors, they are frequently the leaders of their respective
design teams.
This integration of freshmen into senior design teams is usually the only vertical
integration that occurs. Sophomores and juniors do not usually participate in senior
design teams. However, there is some horizontal integration in AE senior design, through
the admission of seniors from the Industrial, Mechanical, and Systems Engineering
curricula into the AE capstone design course. This horizontal integration is relatively
easy to achieve, as these programs also include a capstone design course. Integration of
Electrical and Computer Engineering students into these projects is more difficult, as
these programs do not include capstone design projects. However, we have had some
success with EE students participating for technical elective credit. Details of our
experience with these integrated design teams are provided in Ref. 6.
Figure 1. Virginia Tech Sophomore – Senior AE Curriculum. C=Control &
Dynamics, F=Fluids, G=General/Design, S=Structures. Arrows denote
prerequisites.
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The AE capstone design course has evolved into a catch-all for the non-engineering
science topics expected of graduating aerospace engineers. The relevant material has
been enumerated in several sources, including ABET1, The Boeing Company2, and the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s CDIO initiative3. The Boeing Company’s list is
illustrative, and is reproduced here in Table 1.
Table 1. Desired Attributes of an Engineer2










A good understanding of engineering science fundamentals.
o Mathematics (including statistics)
o Physical and life sciences
o Information technology (far more than "computer literacy")
A good understanding of design and manufacturing processes.
o (i.e., understands engineering)
A multi-disciplinary, systems perspective.
A basic understanding of the context in which engineering is practiced.
o Economics (including business practices)
o History
o The environment
o Customer and societal needs
Good communication skills.
o Written, oral, graphic and listening
High ethical standards.
An ability to think both critically and creatively - independently and
cooperatively.
Flexibility. The ability and self-confidence to adapt to rapid or major
change.
Curiosity and a desire to learn for life.
A profound understanding of the importance of teamwork.
The engineering science elements of the curriculum address the first set of attributes, and
to some degree other attributes are addressed, at least informally, in these courses.
However, only the freshman year and the capstone design course are specifically
designed to engage students in these areas.
As one example of how we incorporate industry-standard practice into the senior design
courses is illustrated in Fig. 2. This diagram depicts the matrix organization used in many
aerospace engineering companies, and is used in the Spacecraft Design course. At the
beginning of the senior year, students are “hired” into our company, and are assigned to
one of the four Functional Divisions shown in the figure. These functional divisions
spend several weeks working as teams to establish the basic skills required to design
spacecraft. Later in the semester, Design Teams are established, drawing on the
Functional Divisions for the required expertise for the specific spacecraft design projects.
Students gain experience in the Functional Divisions relevant to the specific disciplines,
and gain multidisciplinary experience in the Design Teams.
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Team 1
Team 2
Team 3
Team 4
Dynamics and
Control
Communications and
C&DH
Power, Thermal, &
Environment
Structures & Launch
Vehicle
Figure 2. Matrix Organization for Spacecraft Design Teams
Successful Elements of the Current Curriculum
The advantages of the current curriculum are numerous. One important benefit is that
students master appropriate engineering sciences, which is especially important for
preparing students for graduate studies. Another successful component is the vertical and
horizontal integration of freshmen and other engineering seniors into these design
projects. We specifically note that the vertical integration of freshmen has been effective
at introducing women engineering students to the aerospace engineering field. Finally,
we want to point out that our senior design program has been successful in many ways:
students have won national and international design competitions; design projects have
led to funded research programs; design projects have led to implementation of specific
aerospace vehicles. For example, a 2002-2003 design project led to the construction of a
high-altitude sounding rocket payload, which was expected to launch from NASA’s
Wallops Flight Facility on March 14, 2005. Reference 8 provides further examples of
joint Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering design projects, illustrating the importance
and impact to students of actually having to build and fly an airplane.
We do not intend to diminish the role of engineering science in the curriculum, but rather
to enhance other elements, especially vertical and horizontal integration, and the
realization of selected designs of aerospace vehicles.
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Towards A Studio Approach to Undergraduate Aerospace Engineering Education
In Colleges of Architecture at Virginia Tech and elsewhere, a studio approach to teaching
design is standard. Students begin working in a studio environment as freshmen, and
continue through graduate school. Studio approaches have been developed for
engineering curricula as well; Ref. 12 describes a successful studio approach for largescale design projects. The Conceive-Design-Implement-Operate (CDIO3) approach
developed at MIT includes studio elements.
An extreme restructuring of the AE curriculum might implement an architecture-like
approach; however, the immediate requirement for sufficient workspace is likely to be a
significant obstacle. Our goal, then, is to begin with this extreme restructuring concept
and to determine what modifications and what resources are required for implementation
here at Virginia Tech.
Two important objectives are that 1) there is a significant team-based design project in
each year of the curriculum; and 2) there are more opportunities for freshmen to
participate in AE-specific design projects. Furthermore, we intend to expand vertically
integrated projects so that teams are comprised of students from all four levels, and to
expand as much as possible the horizontal integration to include other majors within
these projects. There is currently a proposal within the College of Engineering to
implement College-wide senior design projects in lieu of the current curriculum-specific
projects. Successful implementation of this internal proposal will significantly enhance
our ability to achieve horizontal integration in all projects.
The department has in place an extensive assessment program designed both to satisfy
ABET requirements and to assist in our curriculum revision efforts. We intend to use the
currently available assessment results in planning for this restructuring, and we will
develop new assessment instruments to help us characterize the effectiveness of the
revised curriculum.
Project Schedule
The proposal team is in place and has begun the review of the literature necessary to plan
the new curriculum. We will commit approximately half of the summer to this project
and will continue our efforts during the academic year. If appropriate, we will prepare an
implementation grant proposal in approximately one year, and we will submit a Final
Report in Summer 2006.
References
1. Accreditation Board of Engineering and Technology (ABET), Criteria for
Accrediting Engineering Programs: Effective for Evaluations During the 2000-2001
Accreditation Cycle, 2000 (http://www.abet.org)
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2. The Boeing Company, Desired Attributes of an Engineer: Participation with
Universities, 1996
(http://www.boeing.com/companyoffices/pwu/attributes/attributes.html)
3. E. F. Crawley, The CDIO Syllabus: A Statement of Goals for Undergraduate
Engineering Education, Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, Cambridge MA, 2001
(http://web.mit.edu/aeroastro/www//cdio/cdiodocuments/CDIO.pdf)
4. C. D. Hall, “Laboratory Instruction in Undergraduate Astronautics,” 1999 American
Society of Engineering Education Annual Conference, Charlotte, NC, Jun 20–22,
1999
5. P. M. Larochelle, J. J. Engblom, and H. Gutierrez, “An Innovative Introduction to
Mechanical Engineering : A Cornerstone Design Experience, ” 2003 ASME
Curriculum Innovation Award Honorable Mention,
(http://www.asme.org/education/enged/awards)
6. J. F. Marchman III, and W. H. Mason, “Freshman/Senior Design Education,”
International Journal of Engineering Education, Vol. 13, No. 2, 1997, pp. 143-152
7. W.H. Mason, “Aircraft Design at Virginia Tech: Experience in Developing an
Integrated Program,” AIAA Paper 95-3894, 1st AIAA Aircraft Engineering,
Technology, and Operations Conference, Los Angeles, CA, Sept. 19-21, 1995
8. W. H. Mason, H. Robertshaw and D. Inman “Recent Experiments in Aerospace and
Design Engineering Education,” 42nd AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting and
Exhibit, Reno, NV, AIAA Paper 2004-0415, Jan. 5-8, 2004
9. J. H. McMasters and R. M. Cummings, “Challenges for Education in Aerospace &
Engineering for the 21st Century,” The Bent of Tau Beta Pi, Summer 2004, pp. 12–19
10. S. Newman, D. Whatley and I. Anderson, “Engineering Design Education – The
Integration of Disciplines,” Aircraft Engineering and Aerospace Technology, Vol. 75,
No. 1, 2003, pp. 18–26
11. E. C. P. Ransom and A. W. Self, “The Origins of Aerospace Engineering Degree
Courses,” Aircraft Engineering and Aerospace Technology, Vol. 74, No. 4, 2002,
pp. 355–364
12. B. E. Thompson, “Studio Pedagogy for Engineering Design,” International Journal
of Engineering Education, Vol. 18, No. 1, 2002, pp. 39–49
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