Conference Session

Aerospace Workspace: Current and Future 1

Collection

2009 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Debbie Mullins, Texas Space Grant Consortium; Wallace Fowler, University of Texas, Austin

Tagged Divisions

Aerospace

participants usingTDC methods that guide and motivate student teams through each phase of project development.The program accomplishes this by providing resources that are directly tied to the successfulcompletion of required milestones called “Levels” and optional opportunities called “OptionAreas.” Guidelines and awards attached to milestone deliverables provide schedule structure,motivation, instruction, and funding to the team as design projects mature from the preliminaryidea-stage to a sound design solution. Graduate student peer reviews complement academic andtechnical guidance provided by both faculty and project mentors/customers. The semesterculminates with a professional-style conference, called the Design Challenge Showcase, whichprovides

Conference Session

Aerospace Workspace: Current and Future 2

Collection

2009 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Lisa Guerra, NASA; John A. Christian, University of Texas, Austin; Wallace Fowler, University of Texas, Austin

Tagged Divisions

Aerospace

Course uses a variety of student assignments, both group and individual. The groupassignments are intended to prepare the students for the teaming aspect of the capstone designcourse. Example group assignments include assessing the results from a real trade studyperformed by NASA, and developing the scope and concept of operations for a current aerospacemission in development. Group assignments also offer the students an opportunity to presenttheir work to their peers. The individual assignments address problem solving and programmingskills as well as a required writing component. For a semester-long project, students are asked towrite about the systems engineering learning concepts based on reading a particular NASAmishap investigation report