University of Texas
1 August 2013 – 15 December 2014
Co-P.I. Dr. Thomas W. Stragnac
Co-P.I. Dr. Raktim Bhattacharya
Total award $100,000
This project seeks to support the project Systems Engineering Design Initiative as a sub-contract effort to the University of Texas – Austin. The purpose is to investigate and develop educational tools and practical experience in the teaching of Systems Engineering (SE) principles and practices, which can be later transitioned into a broad range of aerospace engineering courses. The course AERO 440 Cockpit Systems & Displays at Texas A&M University (TAMU) already has significant SE content that will be enhanced and upgraded, and then integrated into the collective courses of instruction within the broad Systems Engineering Design Initiative effort. The AERO 440 course project for Spring 2014 will be purposely selected and directly tied-in with the Systems Engineering Design Initiative efforts at the University of Texas – Austin.
TECHNICAL OBJECTIVES
- Plan and test courses of instruction that integrate the fundamental principles of SE into existing design courses. The objective is to introduce students to the practical application of the fundamentals of SE without displacing other course content. The target TAMU courses are the AERO 401 for the fall 2013 semester and AERO 402 and AERO 440 for the 2014 spring semester.
- Critically review UT Austin Systems Engineering (SE) Student Handout and revise/enhance as appropriate for use by TAMU for the purpose of a design-focused undergraduate student introduction to and practical application of SE for aeronautical systems.
- Critically review UT Austin SE workshop presentation materials intended to introduce the fundamentals of SE to aerospace undergraduate aerospace students involved in extramural design projects, from the perspective of practical application of SE to extramural aerospace student projects but not limited to aeronautics. TAMU shall develop a plan for implementation and revise and/or develop materials for a TAMU version of a SE workshop. TAMU shall conduct the workshop a minimum of once per semester.
Working with me on this program is Graduate Research Assistant:
- Frank Arthurs, Ph.D. student