This spring, while some students are lying out under the sun, other students—particularly Bob Jones engineering students—are camping out under Venus.
Team Kratos specializes in all things Venus, but more specifically, how Venus and Earth are connected. This group of senior students in Jessye Gaines’ engineering internship class decided to dig into the Internet’s rocks and craters to determine the strength and durability of strong materials from Earth on the harsh Venusian atmosphere.
In addition, Kratos must design a payload, or cargo, that would safely land on Venus. This requires that they create a 3D model of the payload using a computer-aided design (CAD) software they’ve learned to manipulate in class.
The team is also working along side two University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) professors and UAH engineering students. At the end of the semester, these Bob Jones seniors will present their payload design to a NASA review board at UAH as they compete against different schools also participating in the Venus mission.
But this project doesn’t only touch on engineering concepts. The students divided the team into different roles. There is a project manager, chief engineer, design group, and other roles with specific responsibilities.
Jessye Gaines explains that she’s seen this team grow to learn about self-motivation and being self-starters.
“They’re figuring out really great communication skills,” Gaines states.
Sarah Haidar, member of Kratos’ community engagement team, explains that this assignment gives the students lessons in other areas that are very valuable for future engineers.
“This whole project gives us an understanding of how to write proposals, communicate with a team, present our ideas, and gives us a general idea of what we might have to do in a career of engineering.”
Gill Gardner participated in this senior design project last semester in Team A.L.I.V.E.
For Gardner, the experience really helped him “convey [his] ideas in a professional way to others and working together with others to achieve a common goal.”
Team Kratos has also reached out to other areas of the community, sharing their project and applying their marketing skills at places like Discovery Middle School.
And as they learn themselves, they share what they’ve discovered in their space exploration of sorts: that Earth and Venus may not share similar behavior regardless of their label as “twins.”
