{"425211":{"#nid":"425211","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Boeing\u0027s AerosPACE fly-off celebrates year-long collaboration","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EWhat will\u0026nbsp;\u003Cem\u003Etomorrow\u0027s\u003C\/em\u003E\u0026nbsp;workplace demand of\u0026nbsp;\u003Cem\u003Etoday\u2019s\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/em\u003Eaerospace engineering students?\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAerosPACE, a project launched by the Boeing Company, has given Georgia Tech aerospace engineering students an answer they won\u2019t find in their statics textbooks.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cEffective collaboration \u2013 across different engineering disciplines, different cultures even different time zones \u2013 is the biggest challenge in today\u2019s business world,\u201d says Marcus Nance, one of several Boeing executives who oversees the AerosPACE (Partners for\u0026nbsp; Advancement of Collaborative Engineering) program.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Ctable width=\u0022200\u0022 border=\u00220\u0022 cellspacing=\u00221\u0022 cellpadding=\u00225\u0022 align=\u0022right\u0022\u003E\u003Ctbody\u003E\u003Ctr\u003E\u003Ctd\u003E\u003C\/td\u003E\u003C\/tr\u003E\u003Ctr\u003E\u003Ctd\u003E\u003Cem\u003EIt\u0027s all about collaboration. From left, ASDL grad student Tom Neuman, Purdue grad student Andy Yu, and\u0026nbsp;AE undergraduate Kevin Murtha.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/td\u003E\u003C\/tr\u003E\u003C\/tbody\u003E\u003C\/table\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cAt Boeing, we have a 24-hour workforce, with engineers collaborating on the same project all around the world. Today\u2019s students will need to have collaboration skills to succeed.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThose skills were everywhere apparent to Nance and his Boeing colleagues on April 17, when they visited Atlanta to review the results of a year-long AerosPACE project that required Georgia Tech ASDL students to collaborate with their peers at Brigham Young, Purdue, and Embry Riddle universities.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ETheir task?\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Ctable width=\u0022200\u0022 border=\u00220\u0022 cellspacing=\u00221\u0022 cellpadding=\u00225\u0022 align=\u0022right\u0022\u003E\u003Ctbody\u003E\u003Ctr\u003E\u003Ctd\u003E\u003C\/td\u003E\u003C\/tr\u003E\u003Ctr\u003E\u003Ctd\u003E\u003Cem\u003EASDL\u0027s Dimitri Mavris accepts the ASEE award from Boeing Associate Technical Fellow Dr. Michael Richey\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/td\u003E\u003C\/tr\u003E\u003C\/tbody\u003E\u003C\/table\u003E\u003Cp\u003EUsing different materials, each team had to design, build, test, and deploy a UAV that is capable of accurately monitoring agricultural crops and delivering useful information on irrigation, pesticide use, and vegetative health.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThree of the schools were responsible for physically housing one of the UAVs during the construction process, but the project teams were composed of students from every school. Each student had to contribute to the concept, design, testing, and deployment of at least one UAV -- even if it was physically located hundreds of miles away.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThere were some site visits \u2013 in late March, Embry Riddle students came to Tech to \u2018lay up the skin\u2019 for the carbon fiber model \u2013 but, for the most part, students had to consult remotely.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThat meant a lot of late-night emails, phone calls, Webexes and Skypes, as the budding aerospace engineers learned how to negotiate across three different time zones. Along the way, they learned how to drop school loyalties and embrace project excellence.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWe had to get over the \u2018camp\u2019 mindset, where there was a Camp Purdue, Camp Tech, or a Camp Embry Riddle,\u201d said ASDL graduate student Tom Neuman, who previously worked cross-locationally for Rolls Royce, Sikorsky, and Boeing.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Ctable width=\u0022200\u0022 border=\u00220\u0022 cellspacing=\u00221\u0022 cellpadding=\u00225\u0022 align=\u0022right\u0022\u003E\u003Ctbody\u003E\u003Ctr\u003E\u003Ctd\u003E\u003C\/td\u003E\u003C\/tr\u003E\u003Ctr\u003E\u003Ctd\u003E\u003Cem\u003EWith the support of Stratosys, the Purdue-based AerosPACE team produced what is believed to be the largest UAV made entirely from a 3D printer. As with all of the teams in this project, the Purdue-based team had participants from all four schools, including Georgia Tech.\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/td\u003E\u003C\/tr\u003E\u003C\/tbody\u003E\u003C\/table\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWe had to come together to come up with a better process for finding solutions and distributing work.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ENeuman\u2019s thoughts were echoed by his mentor, ASDL Director Dimitri Mavris.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThat\u2019s the way it is when you work on a large project,\u201d Mavris said. \u201cYou surrender your badge at the door so you can work for the optimal outcome. And that\u2019s what they did. There was no BYU or Purdue or Embry Riddle teams. There was just one team, and three working groups.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EBoeing Associate Technical Fellow Dr. Michael Richey said a growing number of new technologies support collaborative work. He pointed out that the students in this project were given access to a newly developed CAD\/CAM tool that allows multiple users to simultaneously review design changes from different locales.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EStill, he said, the biggest challenges are the ones that no technology can fully address.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWhat the workforce of today needs are engineers who know how to incorporate their in-depth knowledge into a complex system, constructively using the knowledge of each contributor. It demands a very dynamic leadership style, one that is flexible.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ECompetitiveness \u2013 a great fuel if used in moderation \u2013 was not the main goal here.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cIn this project we knew were bringing together students who had great knowledge in different domains, and we didn\u2019t want the universities to compete. So we purposely gave them an ill-structured problem \u2013 one where they would have to collaborate closely to come up with an innovative solution,\u201d he said.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAnd?\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAt the April 17 fly-off, Richey, Nance, and all of their colleagues were obviously pleased with the results. And they weren\u2019t the only ones.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe Corporate Membership Council of the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) bestowed its Excellence in Engineering Collaboration award on all AerosPACE participants.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EBut, even as the blue crystal trophies were handed to the project leaders, it was Marcus Nance who best captured the spirit of the event:\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cI\u2019m sure there were times over the last year when you thought \u2013 \u2018I can\u2019t do this.\u2019 But then you went ahead and did it anyway. Well, that\u2019s the way it is in the real world. All the time. And you proved you can do it.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Ctable width=\u0022500\u0022 border=\u00220\u0022 cellspacing=\u00221\u0022 cellpadding=\u00221\u0022\u003E\u003Ctbody\u003E\u003Ctr\u003E\u003Ctd\u003E\u003C\/td\u003E\u003C\/tr\u003E\u003Ctr\u003E\u003Ctd\u003E\u003Cem\u003EAerospace students from Georgia Tech, Embry Riddle, Purdue, and Brigham Young came together to work on three\u0026nbsp;UAVs under the auspices of Boeing\u0027s AerosPACE program. (Shown here are two of the final products and their prototypes. The third model was tested earlier this week at Brigham Young.)\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/td\u003E\u003C\/tr\u003E\u003C\/tbody\u003E\u003C\/table\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":"","field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"AerosPACE, a project launched by the Boeing Company, has given Georgia Tech aerospace engineering students an answer they won\u2019t find in their statics textbooks."}],"uid":"27456","created_gmt":"2015-07-15 15:48:22","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:19:04","author":"Britanny Grace","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2014-04-18T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2014-04-18T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"groups":[{"id":"1239","name":"School of Aerospace Engineering"}],"categories":[{"id":"134","name":"Student and Faculty"},{"id":"8862","name":"Student Research"}],"keywords":[{"id":"1325","name":"aerospace"},{"id":"2082","name":"aerospace engineering"},{"id":"4358","name":"boeing"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[],"email":["communications@ae.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}