| Unit name | Aerospace Group Design Project |
|---|---|
| Unit code | CADEM0016 |
| Credit points | 20 |
| Level of study | M/7 |
| Teaching block(s) |
Teaching Block 2 (weeks 13 - 24) |
| Unit director | Dr. Poole |
| Open unit status | Not open |
| Units you must take before you take this one (pre-requisite units) |
None |
| Units you must take alongside this one (co-requisite units) |
None |
| Units you may not take alongside this one |
None |
| School/department | School of Civil, Aerospace and Design Engineering |
| Faculty | Faculty of Engineering |
Why is this unit important?
The Aerospace Group Design Project will provide you with first-hand experience of working in an engineering team, and enable you to exercise and consolidate your design, engineering and management skills in the context of a complete aerospace vehicle design study. A design brief is provided that mimics a typical industrial brief, and provides a challenging multidisciplinary design task. Throughout the project, you will work in a small group to perform concept selection before a preliminary design review, followed by more refined calculations that will lead to a final design review. Teamwork is an important skill due to the multi-disciplinary nature of aerospace design. This unit enables you to put your aerospace engineering knowledge and skills into practise, preparing you for your future career.
How does this unit fit into your programme of study?
The Aerospace Group Design Project is a core pillar for the MSc Aerospace Engineering programme. The unit enables you to apply your background knowledge and skills, as well as those developed in the optional units, to solve a challenging design brief in a multi-disciplinary engineering team.
An overview of content
You will gain first-hand experience of working in an engineering team, by completing a conceptual design study for a specific aerospace vehicle design brief. You will work in a small team with other students, where each group member will take ownership of a technical discipline, but where collaborative effort is essential to ensure successful integration of different subsystems to achieve an effective design. Your group will initially perform trade studies and concept selection to determine the topology of the design, followed by a more refined iteration using both engineering hand calculations (such as those covered in the core years of an undergraduate aerospace or mechanical engineering degree) and analysis tools. You will also need to work independently with self-directed learning to advance knowledge in an individual specialism.
How will students, personally, be different as a result of the unit
You will have gained valuable experience of working in a multi-disciplinary engineering team, to design a complex engineering system in response to customer requirements. You will also have gained an appreciation of the complexity of integrating different subsystems, and the importance of effective teamwork and management.
Learning Outcomes
On successful completion of this unit, students will be able to:
1. interpret design requirements and propose appropriate conceptual solutions for a multidisciplinary aerospace engineering design brief;
2. apply analysis methods and tools to iteratively refine a selected design;
3. apply teamwork and project management skills for collaborative efforts to satisfy a design specification, and effectively integrate contributions from multiple technical disciplines;
4. effectively present design processes and decisions, and judiciously defend them under scrutiny for multiple disciplines.
You will undertake the project in groups. Advisors will be assigned to each group to provide technical support through ad-hoc meetings. Technical seminars and workshops will be offered for selected topics and analysis tools. You are also expected to undertake a substantial amount of self-study in their specialist discipline, to complement their technical knowledge from units and seminars taught in the programme.
Tasks which help you learn and prepare you for summative tasks (formative):
Feedback is provided through regular meetings with advisors. There will be internal reviews via a preliminary design review and a final design review, where technical discussions provide students with feedback on their design.
Tasks which count towards your unit mark (summative):
[25%] – final design review (FDR) presentation
[50%] – final engineering design report (FEDR)
[25%] – individual technical assessment
For the FDR, in your design group you will present your final design solution and rationale to the rest of the cohort. This will also involve a question-and-answer component.
The FEDR submission takes the form of a group report, where you will need to work collaboratively with your team to write a report summarising the overall design process, while you will also need to contribute on an individual level detailing your individual technical discipline. For the FEDR, a peer evaluation will be used whereby you and your fellow team members will provide an assessment of each other’s contributions and a component of your final mark will be based on this peer assessment.
The individual technical assessment takes the form of a viva-voce, where you will need answer questions relating to both your group’s final design and your technical discipline.
When assessment does not go to plan
Collaborative teamwork is an essential component of the Aerospace Group Design Project, and the unit cannot be undertaken individually. In exceptional circumstances, provided a student has substantially contributed to the group design up to the preliminary design review phase as evidenced by attending group meetings and contributing to the work, a reassessment could be offered which involves additional technical analysis which is assessed via an addendum to the group FEDR report, an individual presentation on the additional analysis, and an oral examination.
If this unit has a Resource List, you will normally find a link to it in the Blackboard area for the unit. Sometimes there will be a separate link for each weekly topic.
If you are unable to access a list through Blackboard, you can also find it via the Resource Lists homepage. Search for the list by the unit name or code (e.g. CADEM0016).
How much time the unit requires
Each credit equates to 10 hours of total student input. For example a 20 credit unit will take you 200 hours
of study to complete. Your total learning time is made up of contact time, directed learning tasks,
independent learning and assessment activity.
See the University Workload statement relating to this unit for more information.
Assessment
The assessment methods listed in this unit specification are designed to enable students to demonstrate the named learning outcomes (LOs). Where a disability prevents a student from undertaking a specific method of assessment, schools will make reasonable adjustments to support a student to demonstrate the LO by an alternative method or with additional resources.
The Board of Examiners will consider all cases where students have failed or not completed the assessments required for credit.
The Board considers each student's outcomes across all the units which contribute to each year's programme of study. For appropriate assessments, if you have self-certificated your absence, you will normally be required to complete it the next time it runs (for assessments at the end of TB1 and TB2 this is usually in the next re-assessment period).
The Board of Examiners will take into account any exceptional circumstances and operates
within the Regulations and Code of Practice for Taught Programmes.
