AE Summer Camps Draw Over 100 High School Students

Almost 130 high school students have gotten a taste of Aerospace Engineering at Illinois during summer camps this year.

The AE Department and the Illinois Space Grant Consortium host the Illinois Aerospace Institute Summer Camps. Attendance has grown considerably since the program’s beginnings in the early 1990s, when about 30 campers would participate in a one-week camp. This year, the institute hosted two week-long camps, with each attracting 40 students.

Organizer Brian Woodard, himself an AE camper in the mid-90s, said participants come from all over the world: Japan, India, Europe, China, Malaysia, Brazil, Puerto Rico, Canada, Guyana, as well as from the Midwest, California and the East Coast in the United States. These camps, offering 12 hours of instruction each day over five days, are highly selective in choosing students to participate.

A focused list of aerospace topics are covered, including an introduction to aeronautics/astronautics; model rocket/model glider design; aerospace materials and structures; flight mechanics; aerodynamics; orbits; navigation; rocket propulsion; aeronautics design and astronautics design.

Laboratory activities include introductions to flight simulation, the wind tunnel, rocket propulsion and fluid dynamics. Students build model rockets and gliders, and also take field trips to the Institute of Aviation at nearby Willard Airport. There, they learn about jet aircraft, navigation and flight controls and get to take a flight in a small, four-seater airplane.

AE graduate students lead most of the camp programs. “Graduate students relate well to the high school students,” Woodard said.

In addition to the departmental camps, AE also participates in Girls’ Adventures in Mathematics, Engineering, and Science (G.A.M.E.S.) and in a 4-H camp experience.

This year AE hosted 30 G.A.M.E.S. campers for a week-long program and 19 4-Hers for a three-day experience. The College of Engineering and Women in Engineering sponsor G.A.M.E.S., which brought up to 200 high school girls to campus for activities in computer science, bioengineering, chemical engineering, electrical engineering, civil engineering and mechanical engineering departments, as well as in AE. The 4-H camp is part of the College of ACES Illinois Summer Academies extension program. In G.A.M.E.S. and the 4-H camp, students experienced a similar but less in-depth version of the programs offered departmental campers.

Encouraging students to take an interest in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics has been AE’s goal. “Our primary purpose is for (campers) to go to college and enter a STEM field,” Woodard said.