Are you passionate about how objects travel through air and space? Completing a focused aerospace engineering project can help you demonstrate the depth of your knowledge and skills. Below, we’ll explain how to translate intellectual curiosity into tangible and impressive results. We’ll go over how to design an impressive aerospace engineering project and then provide examples of strong projects for advanced high school students. Finally, we’ll discuss the most common pitfalls to avoid when pursuing an aerospace engineering project, and how to work with a mentor to ensure your project is appropriately scoped.
What Makes an Aerospace Engineering Project Strong
Strong aerospace engineering projects are focused, technical, and measurable, leading to clear and tangible outcomes.
Although aerospace engineering is a wide-ranging field, professional aerospace engineers are generally highly specialized. Therefore, individual research projects should reflect a clear focus and prioritize depth over breadth. The strongest projects are motivated by one specific aerospace engineering problem that the student will address.
In addition to specific problem relevance, strong projects tend to be technically grounded. All processes and results should demonstrate a firm understanding of underlying mathematical and physical principles, as well as engineering and design best practices. For reference, it is strongly recommended that high school students interested in aerospace engineering complete coursework in geometry, trigonometry, pre-calculus, and ideally, Calculus I and Calculus II.
It is also advised that aerospace engineering projects have clear constraints. It may feel like the sky is the limit in this area of research, and in a sense, it is. However, high school students have limited time. Therefore, in order to eventually reach an eventual conclusion, it’s best for the student and their teacher/mentor to begin by agreeing on a feasible scope for the project.
Finally, aerospace engineering projects should be measurable. The goal should be to produce useful, quantitative data that could be shared through a paper, a project board, or otherwise presented to the aerospace engineering community.
Develop Your Aerospace Engineering Project
🚀 Want to build an aerospace project that stands out? Collaborate with Mentors to design focused, technically sound research that showcases real engineering thinking.
Aerospace Engineering Project Ideas by Theme
Flight dynamics
Build a Kite Simulator
This project idea is based on the well-known KiteModeler program, originally designed by NASA to teach aerospace students about aerodynamics. The simulation allows users to design a kite and virtually test its aerodynamics. Users start by selecting a classic shape such as a diamond, a delta, or a box kite. Under “Design”, you have the option to customize the kite’s length, width, and material. From there, you can click into “Trim” to fine-tune the angle of attack, the length and location of the bridle string, and tail length. Finally, the “Fly” tab allows you to simulate flying your kite, and even includes a basic 2-D visualization. You can specify the wind velocity in feet per second, the length of rope, and even add a virtual payload. The simulation tells you whether your kite design will fly, whether it will be stable in the air, and even outputs specific calculations such as lift, drag, flying height, etc.
The goal of this project is to study the original code used to make the calculations and build the simulator, and then to rebuild the simulator using modern JavaScript and a modern user interface. Finally, the student will use their simulator to design an original kite and then build and test it in the real world, comparing their real-world results to the virtual simulator’s predictions. Successfully completing this project requires students to learn in-depth concepts related to flight dynamics, computer programming, and aerospace design. Furthermore, sharing the simulator online would enable other students around the world to explore aerospace concepts for free, demonstrating the importance of open collaboration in science and engineering.
Propulsion and energy
Build a Balloon Rocket Car
This project focuses on propulsion and energy, using ground travel to study aerospace concepts. When a balloon is inflated and high pressure air is trapped inside, the air pushes outward against the interior of the balloon at all points and in all directions. As a result, the forces balance out. However, when the nozzle is opened and air is allowed to escape the system, the forces go out of balance. This leads to thrust and, consequently, acceleration. At a fundamental level, this is how jet engines work, as well: air is pulled into a system where it is heated and pressurized before accelerating out of the system, forcing the jet in the opposite direction. If the force produced by the engine is stronger than the other forces acting on the plane (especially drag), then the plane will move forward.
In this project, students will apply their knowledge of Newton’s Laws of Motion and friction to a practical design challenge inspired by aerospace engineering. The goal is not just to build a balloon rocket car, but to optimize the design to a) be lightweight, b) carry a heavy cargo), and c) travel as much distance as possible. In other words, the student must design and construct an efficient system for extracting the maximum amount of kinetic energy from an inflated balloon.
Suggestions for measuring and evaluating weight, cargo capacity, and distance traveled can be found here.
Materials and structures
Test Composite Materials in Aircraft Wings
Over the past decade, composite materials have become increasingly common in airplane parts such as wing structures and fuselage components. Composite material systems consist of two or more distinct materials that collectively exhibit properties not found in any of the individual constituents. These properties could be related to heat tolerance, flexibility, conductivity, or wear resistance, to name just a few. For example, the Airbus A350 XWB uses carbon-fiber-reinforced plastic extensively in the wings to provide strength while reducing weight and, as a result, fuel consumption.
This project will allow the participating student to study specific uses of composite materials like carbon fiber and fiber glass in aerospace; then, they will design, build, and test two model airplane wings using different composite materials and compare them to an aluminum construction. To measure the strength-to-weight ratio of each wing, the student will weigh each one and then evaluate its strength using static load-deflection or cantilever bending tests. The result of the project will be a research paper reviewing recent developments in composite aerospace materials and presenting original data based on the student’s own experiments.
Space systems
Build and Test a High-Altitude Balloon with Space Systems Payload
Aerospace engineers and scientists frequently use high-altitude balloons to prototype designs in near-space environments. These balloons can reach over 30km above the ground. In this project, the student will design and test a balloon system that will ascend to high altitude while carrying a payload including a camera, a simple ADCS (attitude determination and control systems) sensor experiment, and a parachute. ADCS is essential for scientists to determine satellites’ orientation in space. This project focuses specifically on orientation during ascent and descent. The goal is to send the payload into the upper atmosphere, to measure the orientation of the payload throughout the ascent, float, and descent, and then to recover the payload and extract the data.
This experiment requires some specific hardware components, such as:
3-axis accelerometer
3-axis magnetometer
Raspberry Pi / Pi Zero/ or similar microcontroller
GPS Module
Battery pack
SD card
Keep in mind that this project must be completed in compliance with local regulations and aviation authorities.
Common Pitfalls Students Face
One of the most common mistakes that high school students make when working on aerospace engineering projects is selecting topics that are not sufficiently scoped. For example, building a model plane or rocket is an exciting project that is often recommended to students who are interested in aerospace topics. However, many students do not take the extra step of framing the build as an engineering project (predictions, simulations, design analyses, measuring results, etc.).
Another challenge that students often face is lack of access to software or hardware. Many technical aerospace engineering tools are expensive and difficult to acquire, which can discourage students from completing individual projects. On the other hand, some projects can be completed using tools that are readily available and not prohibitively expensive. (For the space systems project above, the cost of the electronics could come to around $60-70, excluding the SD card, or less if you can find an older or second-hand microcontroller.)
Finally, students who lack aerospace engineering mentors can struggle to receive clear guidance and trustworthy answers to their questions.
How to Scope a Competitive Project
As discussed above, strong aerospace research projects are highly focused. To refine the scope of your project, start by defining clear constraints. In other words, with your mentor, you should explicitly agree on factors that your project will not test. Self-imposed constraints empower you to dig deeper into the topic that you are most interested in.
Next, if completing an aerospace engineering research project, isolate one to three variables for your tests. Research that focuses on one or a few individual variables and tests several versions of them can produce more significant and competitive results than projects that attempt to study several variables at once. For example, the airplane wing materials project described above focuses on a single part and a single shape, changing only the material used.
Finally, reevaluate your scope if needed. If, after beginning your project, you realize that your scope was too wide or too narrow, work with your mentor to adapt it.
From Project to Application Story
Polygence alum Aayod recently completed an educational rocket launch simulator. As a high school student and aspiring aerospace engineer, Aayod started by identifying the skills he already had, and then articulated the skills he would need to complete the project. He then worked with an experienced aerospace research mentor to build those skills and bring his project to life.
“Overall, I think it was a great learning experience for me,” Aayod said, noting that his mentor “was there to guide me along the way and answer my questions.” The project’s outcome demonstrates Aayod’s passion for aerospace engineering as well as his in-depth understanding of thrust, propulsion, and drag force.
Real-World Work Experience in Just 5 Weeks
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Conclusion
Polygence is a unique resource for students to translate their passion for aerospace engineering into credible research and concrete results that highlight their skills.
Our renowned Research Mentorship Program connects high school students with experienced, PhD-level experts. These are top-tier mentors who can provide guidance and support throughout the research process while answering technical questions as they arise.
Our Work Lab, designed for highly motivated high school students, places them directly inside cutting-edge aerospace startup companies. There, they’ll collaborate with founders and technical leaders to gain hands-on experience solving real-world problems that the aerospace industry is working on right now!
Finally, Polygence Pods are opportunities for students to explore exciting topics alongside an expert mentor and a handful of like-minded students. At the end of the 6-week course, students produce an individual outcome such as a short-form research paper. Past Pods topics have included aerospace engineering, data analysis for research projects, and more.
Apply online to find out how Polygence can help your project take flight!