Student Organizations
American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME)
The ASME student section advances and disseminates knowledge about mechanical engineering, presents a proper perspective on engineering work, and promotes professional awareness and fellowship. The section has regular meetings to discuss ASME activities, invites guest speakers to discuss various engineering topics and engineering faculty to speak about current research, and invites recent UC Davis graduates to discuss their engineering assignments since graduation. Activities of the UC Davis chapter include field trips, participation in a national student design contest, student regional conference, and a social functions designed to increase interaction between students and faculty. ASME also sponsors several student projects.
American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA)
The AIAA is an interdisciplinary organization made up of people interested in the aeronautics and aerospace field. The student chapter has members from a variety of engineering disciplines. The chapter links the professional world—industry, research, and the space program and students who may one day take part in aerospace activities. The group has regular meetings and informal gatherings to discuss recent events and topics of interest with professors, graduate students and representatives of industry and government, sponsors speakers; and organizes field trips to aerospace industries and research facilities.
Student Projects
Aeronautical Design Team
Since 1994 a team of aeronautical and mechanical students, supervised by Professor Nesrin Sarigul-Klijn, has been participating in the annual Aero Design Collegiate Competition (aka "Aerobrick"), in which the students design, manufacture and flight test a fully composite, radio-controlled airplane. In the 1995 competition, Aerobrick carried a payload of 16.25 pounds, and the UC Davis team received first place for its design reports and drawings. The team placed third for the "Most Effective Usage of Composites in Design" category award. In the 1998 competition, the Aerobrick ‘98 team placed second in the nation by lifting 27.5 pounds- just a fraction less than the 27.7 pounds carried by the first place entry.
This year long project allows students to get hands on experience in structure and aeroelasticity; aerodynamics; propulsion; stability and control; performance. Each year the team is formed during the Fall quarter and design, manufacturing and flight testing take place during the Winter and Spring quarters.
Aggie Micro Aeronautics Team (AMAT)
The Aggie Micro Aeronautics Team, also known as AMAT, is a young club at UC Davis that allows students to explore the components and dynamics of airplanes by building RC airplanes from scratch every year. These completed RC airplanes compete in an annual SAE sponsored competition in which over 40 schools from all over the country enter in. In 2006, AMAT was able to secure 4th out of 37 in the regular class, and 1st place overall for the design report out of 50 in the SAE Aerodesign West Competition.
DARPA Grand Challenge
The DARPA Grand Challenge is an autonomous vehicle race over an approximate 175-mile course through the Mojave Desert in the shortest time under 10 hours. The vehicle must complete the course without any human control. A team of students from several different departments both inside and outside of the School of Engineering are collaborating to design and build the UC Davis entry. The project faculty advisor is Professor Joshi.
Design Clinic
Engineering students perform a wide range of industrial design projects, ranging from systems design of a human-powered or hybrid-electric vehicles to rocket engine clusters and Caltrans maintenance trucks. For Mechanical Engineering students, they participate in the Design Clinic through the required capstone design course sequence, EME 185A & B. Students from other programs may be able to obtain independent study/design units.
Teams of students from the Department of Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering have been consistently placing within the top ten in various national and international competitions. In many cases, students working on projects can get academic credit to fulfill their capstone design requirement.
Hybrid Electric Vehicle
A group of undergraduates in Mechanical Engineering under the supervision of Professor Andy Frank designed and manufactured "Aftershock," a car that combines the low emissions of an electric vehicle and the range and power of a gasoline engine. "Aftershock" placed first in the International Hybrid Electric Vehicle Challenge in 1994 and 1995, as well as earning prizes in other categories. "Aftershock" can run for nearly a thousand miles before refueling or recharging, and has achieved the enviable fuel economy of 80 miles to the gallon at highway speeds of sixty miles per hour.
Students of Professor Andy Frank are participating in FutureCar, a competition co-sponsored by the US Department of Energy and the Chrysler, Ford, and General Motors corporations. UC Davis was one of twelve universities whose students were selected to rebuild cars donated from the three automotive companies. The students re-engineered a Ford Taurus with a hybrid gasoline-electric engine. At the midway competition in June 1996, the UC Davis FutureCar achieve close to over 55 miles per gallon. The UC Davis team received first place awards for its technical report and teamwork.
At the final competition in June, 1997, the UC Davis FutureCar team obtained six out of 12 individual awards, taking an overall first place. The team's car averaged 62 miles per gallon with no tailpipe emissions.
Human Powered Vehicle - HPV
Human-Powered Vehicle Team focuses on the annual ASME HPV Challenge. Our engineering teams have set many national and world records in vehicle performance and efficiency. Our team forms in the Fall, after the first regular meeting of the ASME student section. The competition usually takes place in late April or early May.
Society of Automotive Engineers - Formula SAE
Formula SAE is an annual competition where student teams race their own ground-up Indy-style racecars. UC Davis enters this competition each year.
Space Systems Capstone Design
With the recent success of NASA's current Mars missions, the world has regained focus on the red planet. An eventual step in our exploration is to land a human crew on the surface and safely return them. The Mars Prime mission architecture outlines a mission to Mars that would precede human departure and land necessary supplies and equipment. This design was completed by the graduating aeronautical engineering class of 2004 as their senior design project in Space Systems Design. The course instructor for the project was Professor Joshi. This site would be interesting to those looking for material on the planet Mars, human missions to Mars, or space system design in general. In future years, the Space Systems Design course (EAE130-C) will tackle different space missions.
Team Aggie Deep ROV
Team Aggie Deep ROV is a student-run team that designs, builds and competes a remotely operated underwater vehicle (ROV). The ROV flys and hovers with 6-degrees of motion powered by DC thrusters and is guided remotely via fiber-optic cable to the surface where team members see what the ROV sees by way of chassis mounted cameras and lights.
Team Aggie Deep ROV competes in the M.A.T.E. Explorer Class International Competition against other universities from all over the world at the end of each school year (usually late June).
Team Aggie Deep ROV gives UCD students a chance to manage a complete engineering project from initial concept, CAD design, manufacturing and testing in the pool, all the way to final competition - in just one school year. Team Aggie Deep ROV also provides the opportunity for students to learn valuable skills like writing technical reports, giving presentations and much needed fund raising.
Team Aggie Deep ROV is ideal for students who have an itch for exploration and want to apply their engineering coursework to a real-world project where they can gain experience designing and building a complex robotic vehicle that operates in an extreme environment.