Awards

Schools Aerospace Challenge.

Cranfield 2010

The 2010 competition will go live at the end of January. Check out the website www.aerospacechallenge.org to see details of the 2009 Award Ceremony and what you can expect in 2010.

The summer school at Cranfield was conceived as a short course, Monday to Friday, designed to introduce young people aged 16 to 18 years to the engineering side of aerospace.

Backed from the start by British Aerospace, now BAE SYSTEMS, the programme has developed over ten years into an internet based engineering and design competition open to teams of three young people throughout the UK. Support has grown steadily and now involves over 25 leading aerospace organizations.

The organisers select the best entries and those teams are invited to attend Cranfield. Based on their original entry and subsequent performance at Cranfield, one team will be selected as the Schools Aerospace Team of the Year.

The 2009 winning team will make a presentation of their entry at the Institution of Mechanical Engineers in London on 3 November 2009 after which they will be presented with a £5000 prize by Air Chief Marshal Sir Stephen Dalton KCB ADC BSc FRAeS FCMI RAF, Chief of the Air Staff, on behalf of the sponsoring organizations. The money will be split between the team's school and the members, each student receiving £833.

The summer school runs for a week with places for twelve teams. The students are split into three groups each led by an engineering graduate seconded from industry. Classroom work is balanced with practical exercises where students learn to plan strategy, manage resources and achieve an objective. Talks on understanding how both fixed and rotary wing aircraft are designed and operated are complemented by an opportunity to pilot both types. The teams also fly in the Cranfield National Flying Laboratory, a Jetstream specially equipped with flight test observer stations, where they record actual flight test data for later analysis on the ground.

Dr John Barnes Trophy Award.

The Association of Aerospace Universities (AAU) wishes to award, annually, a trophy in acknowledgement of its founder, and President, Dr John Barnes. The trophy will be awarded to a member institution, who will be custodian of it for one year, for the most successful, final year, aerospace student project. In addition, the AAU will donate the sum of £250 to the successful student and £50 to the runners-up.

Step1: The AAU representative at each member institution, together with colleagues, will select their best student project.

Step2: The representative will submit a one page abstract, together with a copy of the project report, to the AAU Trophy Panel.

Step3: The Panel will select the best four from these submissions.

Step4: The authors will be invited to attend a 'final round competition' where each student will be given 15 minutes, including questions, to present their project. The Panel will then award the trophy to the best student.

Entries close; June 14th 2010

For more details please contact charleycrocker@btinternet.com