AME Students Present Winning Projects at the AIAA Conference

USC AME and ASTE students participated in the AIAA Region VI Student Conference at the University of California, Irvine, March 29-30. AME 441 Seniors Projects students received 1^st and 2^nd place in the Undergraduate Teams Category, and Junior Nicholas Lototsky received 1^st place in the Undergraduate Individual category.

The 1^st place Undergraduate Team winners, Kylar Flynn, Gabriel Goldman, Connor Storey, and Jose Torres, presented their work on the experimental construction and testing of a FEEP thruster using Gallium for propellant. Gallium is an advantageous propellant due to its low melting temperature and low toxicity. These students built and tested their thruster in the ASPEN vacuum chamber in the Baum Family Maker Space and used plasma diagnostics to confirm their predicted performance.

The 2^nd place Undergraduate Team winners, Yashvi Deliwala, Amanda Lucker, Jacquelin Nguyen, and Audrey Park presented their work on shape memory alloy tiers for Mars exploration. Their project explored the design and testing of a superelastic tire suited for space exploration using Nitinol springs to enhance the rover tire’s performance on harsh extraterrestrial terrains.

The 1^st place Undergraduate winner, Nicholas Lotosky, presented their independent research on modeling a “Gliding Turn-Back” Maneuver. The project developed a numerical model of the “impossible turn,” a gliding turn-back maneuver flown when an engine fails shortly after takeoff in a single-engine, fixed-wing aircraft.

“This year’s Seniors worked tirelessly all year to deliver high-quality publishable results from their experimental projects. For over a decade, USC students have performed very well at this conference and we’re proud of our entire AME 441 Senior Project Program!”-Prof. Matt Gilpin

In addition to these groups, USC has sent various other student teams from AME 441 and the ASPEN lab. USC’s success at this event continues with over ten straight years of podium finishes by seniors.

AME would like to thank Prof. Matt Gilpin for the write-up.

Published on April 2nd, 2025Last updated on April 7th, 2025