Student Projects

The University of Michigan College of Engineering supports a wide array of student project teams. The Wilson Student Team Project Center occupies a facility adjacent to the FXB building to support a diverse set of student team projects. Students gain experience with all phases of the design, build, test project cycle. Review a list of Wilson Student Team Project Center on the College of Engineering's teams here.

In addition, the department has summer research projects for undergraduate students under Rackham’s Summer Research Opportunity Program (SROP) and Summer Undergraduate Research Experience (SURE).  Interested students can go through the online list of available projects for the next summer.

Aerospace student team projects include:

Student Space System Fabrication Lab (S3FL)

Student Space System Fabrication Lab Mission"To provide practical hands-on interdisciplinary experience for students through the design and development of exciting aerospace projects as part of their overall academic preparation."About S3FLThe Student Space Systems Fabrication Laboratory (S3FL) is an organization dedicated to providing students with practical space systems design and fabrication experience not readily available through the academic curriculum. S3FL’s approach is to enhance education by coupling classroom knowledge with practicum experience involving real engineering design, analysis, test, fabrication, integration, and operation of actual flight vehicles and space payloads.

Each year, S3FL involves over a hundred undergraduate and graduate students in activities ranging from balloon payloads to microgravity experiments to nanosatellites. By participating in the end-to-end development of complete space systems, students acquire knowledge and expertise that would otherwise take years of post-graduate experience to be achieved.

Aero Faculty Advisors
James Cutler
Alec Gallimore
Luis Bernal

Solar Bubbles Team

Student Projects - SolarbubblesThe University of Michigan Solarbubbles UAV Team provides the hands-on experience of designing, building and testing unmanned-aerial vehicles to students at the University of Michigan. The team allows an opportunity for the practical development of leadership, teamwork and technical skills outside of the classroom for dedicated and intelligent students.The team's primary short-term goal is to design, build and test a solar-powered unmanned aerial vehicle capable of 36+ hours of flight, of carrying a small camera payload and with less than a 15 foot wingspan. The team's long-term goal is to investigate, design, build and test creative and unique unmanned aerial vehicles. (Click adjacent photo to view recruiting video)

videoNov. 2008 press release: The longest fuel cell powered flight of a radio-controlled aerial vehicle has been achieved by students at the University of Michigan [Solarbubbles] and engineers at Ann Arbor-based fuel cell manufacturer Adaptive Materials, Inc. Their plane, named Endurance, flew for 10 hours, 15 minutes and 4 seconds in a flight that lasted from sunrise to sunset on Oct. 30, 2008 at Field of Dreams Park in Milan, Mich. The previous world record, held by a California-based company, lasted just over 9 hours. (Click adjacent photo to view fuel cell video)

Aero Faculty Advisors
Ella Atkins
Luis Bernal
Carlos Cesnik
Pete Washabaugh

Solar Bubbles Website

 

M-Fly SAE Aero Design Team
M-Fly competed in the 2013 SAE Aero Design East competition March 15-17, 2013 in Fort Worth, Texas. The team won both the written design report and the oral presentation for the regular class and finished in 13th place overall!!

M-Fly is a Society of Automotive Engineers Aero Design team, dedicated to promoting opportunities for students to practice applying their knowledge to projects outside the classroom. “The Aero Design ® Competition challenges engineering students to conceive, design, fabricate, and test a radio controlled aircraft that can take off and land while carrying the maximum cargo. This gives students the opportunity to apply the knowledge learned in the classroom on a practical problem.” - SAE Aero Design

Team Lead: (Jordan Hall, jordanha@umich.edu)

Aero Faculty Advisor
Joaquim Martins

Human Powered Helicopter

Human-Powered Helicopter Team was created in 1991 to design, build, andfly the world's first human-powered helicopter. The manager of each ofthe team's task groups together with the team's project manager,technical manager, and advisor-make up the management committee, whichcoordinates the various elements of the team. A program written by thecomputer group, which calculated the power required to meet variousparameters, confirmed that the project is feasible. Because the team ismade up entirely of full-time students, turnover is high from semesterto semester. The team is always in need of creative, hard-workingpeople. Faculty advisor: William Ribbens, 764-9546 HPH office, 11 EPB,747-3319.

Team Leads
Eamonn Shirey
Amanda Napoli
Raymond Johnothan
Nick Haisma
Miranda Rudolph
Matt Misiorowski
David Bilby

Mars Rover

Student Projects - Mars RoverThe Mars Rover program is an ongoing research project in which astudent team designs, builds and tests prototypes of manned rovers foruse in a human mission to Mars. A Michigan Engineering team designedand built one of the world's first prototypes, called "Everest," basingit on an Army FMTV cargo truck. If a crew of four were to reach theMartian surface, Everest would be able to carry them up to 1000kilometers. The team has tested Everest at the Mars Desert ResearchStation in Utah and at a Michigan rock quarry.

Team Lead
Kohei Fujimoto

Faculty Advisor (AOSS)
Nilton Renno


MREA: Michigan Rocket Engineering Association

The Michigan Rocket Engineering Association is a student organization created specifically to design and fabricate rockets. MREA focuses in projects involving new hybrid propulsion technologies and composite structures. These projects culminate in rocket launches, which have been conducted since 2004. MREA's rockets are technologically demonstrative and more than able to launch payloads such as GPS telemetry devices, cameras and Cansat satellite simulators.

Team Leads:
Math Schottler
Chris Dobbins

MAAV: Michigan Autonomous Aerial Vehicles

The Michigan Autonomous Aerial Vehicles (MAAV) team is a student competition team at the University of Michigan founded in September 2009. The goal of the team is to enter and win the 2011 International Aerial Robotics Competition (IARC). The team consists of students ranging from freshman to graduate students with a few Ph.D. candidate advisors. The team is a highly interdisciplinary team with students from Aerospace Engineering, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, and the Business School. The team is divided into sub-teams to delegate tasks vital to the project. These sub-teams include: Electrical Hardware, Navigation, Structures, Controls and Simulation, Imaging, Testing, and Business. Each of the members on the team is involved in at least two of the sub-teams.

At the end of the first year, MAAV successfully built two quadrotor vehicles capable of manual flight. Many of the autonomous aspects of the project made significant progress, but have not been implemented on the vehicle.

 

Team Leads
Jose Gomez (jjgomez@umich.edu)
Isaac Olson (olsoni@umich.edu)

 

Faculty Advisors:
Pete Washabaugh (pete@umich.edu)
Ella Atkins (ematkins@umich.edu)
Ed Olson (ebsolson@umich.edu) (Computer Science & Engineering)

 

M-Jet: Michigan Jet Engine Team

The purpose of this group is to provide University of Michigan Students with a hands-on jet engine experience and help them better understand the inner workings of a turbine engine. Our organizations sponsors jet engine experiments. These experiments are put together by three subcommittees which meet weekly to work on the project. Initial experiments will be basic engine runs and in the future we will test the engine performance with different fuels and in varying altitudes.

Aero Faculty Advisor
Tim Smith

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Legacy Teams (no longer active)

Experimental Aircraft

The purpose of this group is to educate students at the University through the construction of manned, powered aircraft and to create an opportunity for students to gain real-world experience in the aircraft design process. Our goal is to research, design, and construct a manned aircraft using composite materials similar to work done in the aerospace industry.