follow your New engineering club Aero designed and built radio controlled planes for international competition. Near the end of the 2018-19 schoolyear, senior mechanical engineering major Alex Stroud approached Rich Wells, assistant professor of engineering and physics, about establishing an engineering club named Aerofor his seniorengineering project. Stroudsaid Aerofocused on designing, building and flying radio controlled (RC) planes for the Society for Automotiveand Aeronautical Engineers' (SAE) aero international competition. Wells, who served as faculty adviser for Aero, said engineering majors were assigned to complete a seniorproject in which they designed, constructed and tested their own inventions in teams of four as part of a two semesterclass titled engineering projects I and II. He said Aerowas a good fit for the project because it added a competitive aspect to the experience. Stroudsaidhe was interested in establishing Aeroafter his previous experience in SAE competitions with the Baja team. He recruited three other seniorengineering majors -- Andrew Pratt, Garrett Weaver and Bryan Sampson -- during summer 2019 to join him on his seniorproject team and help lead Aero. Weaversaidhe learned about the opportunity through Pratt and decided to join Aeroafter researching the SAE aero competition. He saidhe was excited to be involved in a hands-on application of what 284 he learned in engineering courses. "Getting to do somethingthat's tangible is exciting, and learning more about howplanes work and how the controlling works is interesting," eWaversaid. "And I'm excited about having a team to work with as well. StroudSaidhe hoped the seniors would mentor the underclassmen they recruited into the club to build a foundation for the future. "We can teach a little bit about engineering design, and they can have some experience along with that," Stroud said. "I think we've got a good foundation to potentiallystart this to be like an annual competition." Wells saidhe wantedAeroto continue to grow like the Baja team. He saidhe wanted to impress the other teams at the competition with how they performed for their first yearbecause he loved seeing the confidence that competition like ero and Baja gave Harding engineering tudents. "Some of them think they're taking a ri k coming to a small school in a Christian environment, but the can compete against anybody in MIT or anywhere," Wells said.· I'm very erious about that. They're getting the same quality education - guarantee that. tory by Sarah Barnard
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