Aerospace Program📍Johns Hopkins University

Hello Universe!

Today, I’m going to be reflecting on my experience this summer at an Aerospace Program at Johns Hopkins University.

---

Lectures + Classes

I stayed at the Scott-Bates Commons and walked to campus every day for classes, lectures,

and working on projects.

We had a lecture from the head of the Mechanical Engineering Department at JHU, Dr. Gretar Tryggvason, and one from Captain Michael Sanders from the United States Naval Academy. It was amazing hearing from both of these accomplished professionals who have experience in the field and could share their insights with us.

On most days, we took a class related to aerospace engineering, whether that be on the forces of flight, propulsion systems, or computational fluid dynamics. After these classes, we would create a project based on the skills we learned. We created a payload delivery system, a windmill, an airplane, and an aircraft catapult.

Excursions

During my time here, we visited amazing locations where we were able to see where aerospace engineers work and the variety of specialization options within the field. We visited the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Joint Base Andrews, and the National Air and Space Museum Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, among many other locations throughout Baltimore and Washington D.C.

Aerospace Rotations

Arduino Board

During the program, we were able to participate in Aerospace Rotations, during which we were introduced to skills and concepts necessary to the Aerospace Engineering field. During these rotations, I learned to solder, to use the designing platform CAD, and how to program an Arduino board.

Capstone Projects

As a conclusion of the program and a summary of what we learned, we were able to create capstone projects within our TA groups. These consisted of a rocket, a drone, and an airplane. The rocket would be measured by time in flight, the drone by its accuracy when hitting a target, and the plane by the rotations it does around a center. I participated in two of these projects. I helped my team build our rocket and print the necessary parts using CAD and a 3-D printer. Once we had finished our rocket, I joined the drone team and helped rewire it, along with innovating ways to get it to fly and aim at our target. We ended up placing first in this category. Though I did not join the plane team, I did have the opportunity to create one during our classes and projects.

I enjoyed being able to work as a team with my TA group throughout the program, and because of our performance in the various challenges we did, our TA group won the most points overall in the program!

Thoughts on Program

I enjoyed every moment of this program, and I am grateful for the opportunity to explore the field I want to pursue. I also enjoyed meeting so many other students equally as interested as I am in aerospace and from a wide variety of backgrounds. This experience has made me even more excited to pursue aerospace engineering and astrophysics, and it has shown me all the different things I can learn and achieve throughout my career.