March 30, 2010
When thousands of students, parents and community members visited Explore UT, the University's annual open house Saturday, March 6, the Aerospace Engineering Department was ready to teach and entertain visitors of all ages with the wonders of aerospace engineering. Over 400 school buses from across Texas emptied enthusiastic students onto every corner of campus, and hundreds found their way to the WRW building to explore eight different aerospace activities.
Visitors met department staff at the WRW entrance who passed out literature about the department programs and wooden model airplanes for children to assemble. Around the corner, the Longhorn Rocket Association led one of the department's most popular workshops, which taught visitors how to assemble their own model rockets. By the time the mostly elementary and middle school students left, they had a complete model rocket ready to launch after their parent bought an added a motor.
"We taught them about the parts of the rocket and pretty much let them build it on their own," said Dan Oropeza, the assistant vice president of the Longhorn Rocket Association. "A lot of the kids seemed really interested in building them, and even I still find it a lot of fun."
A different kind of rocket assembly awaited UT explorers on the third floor, where aerospace students helped children put together miniature paper shuttles that they then attached to balloons to race along strings down the hall. Visitors to the Air System Laboratory meanwhile learned about UT students' work designing and building large model airplanes. Other labs exhibited to the public included the Wind and Water Tunnel Lab, where demonstrations introduced visitors to the ways aerospace engineering influences their lives, and the 3-D Visualization Lab, where spectators watched demonstrations of spacecraft and aircraft dynamics, fluid flow, structural dynamics and modeling and simulation.
While most of the younger students spent time building model rockets or learning about GPS in the ECJ plaza, high school students could meet with academic advisors to learn about majoring in aerospace engineering and the career opportunities available in the field.
"Getting an idea of some of the things you can do with math and science is the most important part," said Oropeza, who said students hopefully discover something new about a variety of fields, not just engineering. "That's what I think Explore UT is all about," he said.
