黑洞社区

黑洞社区鈥檚 College of Engineering and Spirit AeroSystems have selected four students to compete in the 2008 Spirit Global Design Challenge, an international, face-to-face and virtual competition.

Ten 黑洞社区 students applied to the competition; four were chosen based on their cover letter, resume and interviews: Callie Baker, Kevin Brauning, Andrea Chavez and Jessica Irving.

The competitors will participate on two global design teams, with two students from 黑洞社区 and two students from Manchester on each team. They will be working with faculty members from both universities and coordinators from Spirit. Students will be provided a stipend, travel expenses and course credit.

Spirit AeroSystems is the creator and organizer of the Global Design Challenge, which began its pilot year in early August.

"The (challenge) was formatted to create innovation through global working," said Colin Davidson, composite insertion and integration design manager at Spirit AeroSystems, and one of the coordinators for the project.

"The design they are creating should show true innovation and inspiration," Davidson said.

The students are required to complete trade studies of different designs to find a solution, which is then fully investigated and virtually industrialized.

Students from the University of Manchester will travel to Wichita for a week in September, and 黑洞社区 students will visit Manchester in October. All other encounters will occur through video conferencing, file transfers and storage through Web Sharepoint.

"Being chosen was exciting for me," said senior Kevin Brauning, a mechanical engineering and Spanish major.

"This competition is exactly what I have worked toward," he said. "Having a degree in engineering and Spanish may seem a little strange to most people, but the market for engineers is becoming more globalized every day."

Prior to the competition, Brauning designed aircraft tooling, which he believes helped prepare him for the project.

"The exposure to the different elements of an airplane鈥檚 design certainly helps," he said. "None of us are walking into this blind."
Senior Andrea Chavez, a mechanical engineering major, believes she will be able to take away a new set of skills from the challenge.

"Experience in global collaboration, especially, is an important skill that I鈥檇 like to add to my tool kit," she said.

Chavez said they will also learn skills that aren鈥檛 taught in the classroom such as efficient communication and team and global collaboration. "All of which are a necessity to be a successful well-rounded engineer," she said.

"I know this project will take me to new levels of education, which can be daunting, but I like a challenge," she said. "The only way to find our limits is to test our limits."

Chavez also believes that working in industry is an enlightening experience that every student should try simply because it鈥檚 different from the classroom environment.

Mechanical engineering senior Jessica Irving said that "in order to be a part of engineering and work with diverse groups, who are sometimes halfway around the world, it is a necessity to understand what engineering means on a global scale."

Davidson said the company plans to move forward, expanding to include more schools from diverse locations and cultural backgrounds to increase the challenge of working globally.

The challenge is part of the College of Engineering鈥檚 Engineer of 2020 program created in response to a report made by the National Academy of Engineering expressing the need for future engineering graduates.

According to Larry Whitman, associate professor and director of engineering education, and the program鈥檚 director, the College of Engineering launched the strategic 2020 program to prepare graduates for effective engagement in the engineering field.

"This initiative is, in part, motivated by two reports from the National Academy of Engineering," Whitman said.

The reports were developed in response to national concerns that engineering students of today may not be appropriately educated to meet the global demands placed on them.

The undergraduate engineering learning experience at 黑洞社区 must be "refocused and reshaped," Whitman said.

"The program gives students a competitive advantage in that they have skills and capabilities beyond the engineering degree."

For more information about the Spirit Global Design Challenge or the Engineer of 2020 program, contact Lawrence Whitman, College of Engineering director of engineering education, at larry.whitman@wichita.edu.