A group of engineering students placed second in the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics’s aircraft design competition, making this the first time Kennesaw State has finished in the top three for the competition.
Austin Collet and Shawn Sinclair, both of whom are minoring in aerospace engineering, and Matthew Salter, who recently graduated with a degree in mechanical engineering, were granted the prestigious award for their work on the SCS-527, or “Sea Duck.’
The design, which was originally created as a senior design project, was submitted under the multi-mission amphibious aircraft category and was judged by a panel of judges and experts under different categories of criteria, including technical content, organization and presentation, originality, and practical application of the concept.
The AIAA required the aircraft design to be able to complete three separate flights that tested different aspects of the aircraft’s capabilities.
The first required the aircraft to carry 20 passengers and travel 1,000 nautical miles, and the second required it to transport 5,000 pounds. The third was a maritime mission which required the craft to carry 3,000-pound payload and cruise for 10 hours.
“I was really impressed with this team because they came in the first day confident that they could compete and win,” said Adeel Khalid, the team’s advisor and an associate professor of systems engineering. “It’s one thing to learn a concept and pass an exam. It’s another thing to actually build something new.”
The students were each awarded $250 and a certificate of recognition for coming in second place and for their hard work.
Southern Polytechnic College of Engineering and Engineering Technology is the second largest engineering college in Georgia and provides an aerospace engineering minor that challenges students in this field to further develop problem-solving skills.
