UBC student Dylan Schuetze, who will be entering his fourth year of mechanical engineering this fall, recently returned from Orlando, Florida, where he got to rub elbows with members of NASA at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics’ 51st Annual Structures, Structural Dynamics, and Materials Conference.
He also took home the Best Presentation award in his session. Schuetze’s presentation focused on an undergraduate research project he is doing with engineering professors Abbas S. Milani, Yang Cao and Homayoun Najjaran. He is exploring new design automation methodologies to reduce cost of computations in complex engineering problems. In his conference paper, Schuetze proposed the application of his approach in minimizing oscillations of a vehicle passenger seat and enhancing the stiffness of a composite aircraft wing to avoid resonance.
“It was a great learning experience to be down there with so many established professionals,” says Schuetze. “So much interesting stuff was happening — I was able to listen to a senior official from NASA give a presentation one day and the next day President Obama was at Cape Canaveral outlining his new strategy for the American Space Program.
“It was an exciting time to be at an astronautics conference.”
The conference, a widely acknowledged event that provides a unique forum for the aeronautics and astronautics community, is dedicated to the latest developments in the collective disciplines of structures, structural dynamics, materials, design engineering, and survivability.
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