Engineering students from Wichita State University received a global experience this past semester. Teaming with Spirit AeroSystems Inc., six students from the College of Engineering joined teams from three other schools to design a futuristic tail-end of an airplane.

North Carolina State University, the University of Manchester and the Universiti of Sains Malaysia combined forces with Wichita State to compete in the Spirit Global Design Challenge. Engineering teams included students from each college. Each team was given a different type of aircraft to design for.

“I learned to know how to work with people in a team,” said Zenas Tshitundu, a WSU member of the challenge team and an international student from the Democratic Republic of Congo. “I learned how to adapt to how other people like to do things.”

Participants from WSU were Avijit Kalra, Marcus Pyles, Allison Ronning, Abhishek Singh, Tshitundu and Yiyun Xu. Students were split into three different teams but each worked on a different type of aircraft’s empennage, or tail-end.

“They said to be creative as much as you want,” said Kalra, a senior international student from India. “They really wanted us to think outside the box.”

The purpose of the challenge is to show students that business is becoming more and more global each day. In addition, it provides practical, one-of-a-kind work experience.

The challenge assists with the College of Engineering’s recruitment efforts, said Larry Whitman, director of engineering education at Wichita State. At a scholarship competition panel, Whitman learned how both students and parents felt about the challenge.

“Most students are more interested in finding out that they are going to do something industrial based,” said Whitman. “Parents were very interested to hear about WSU’s participation in the global environment.”

“Other schools do something like this but they do it on a much more limited scale,” he said. “This is unique; not many other people are doing this.”

Challenges

For the most part, students were required to connect with each other via Skype or other ways online because of the distance between schools. Only twice were the teams able to work face-to-face.

“Those were the most productive days because the whole team was together,” said Kalra.

Language barriers were also an issue. English was not the native language of the Malaysian students involved in the challenge. They were all English-speaking students but many interpreted the language in different ways.

Time zones and time commitments were also an issue.

“I’m always amazed at what the students are able to accomplish given the natural barriers of location time and dialect,” said Matt Norris, Spirit engineer and team mentor for Wichita State during the challenge.

“It’s a remarkable lesson for us all when motivated individuals are empowered by technology to achieve a mission,” he said.

WSU students had meetings at 6:30 a.m. some days to connect with Malaysian students before they went to bed. Students also had to balance a normal semester’s workload in addition to the work required for the challenge.

“Global design is so time intensive compared to a normal class,” said Pyles, a senior aerospace engineering major. “You’re restricted on how much you can work. They want something good to present to the company.”

Real-world global experience

As business and engineering evolves, so does the global aspect of engineering. The challenge gives students a look into what the real world of work and engineering is.

“The student benefit is tremendous,” said Charles Yang, faculty mentor for Wichita State during the challenge. “Everything is global now, from design, manufacturing and marketing.”

“This is a very, very special experience,” he said.

Participants in the contest listed rewards such as gaining industrial experience, meeting vice presidents at Spirit AeroSystems and international travel.

“We’ve had students before that had never been outside their home state, let alone their home country,” said Kevin Brauning, Spirit engineer and challenge coordinator for Wichita State.

“It can be an eye-opening experience for them.”

Students and faculty agree that the experience is unique to the schools involved in the challenge.

“I’m just grateful that I was a participant,” said Tshitundu. “Just the experience itself meant a lot to me because it wasn’t something like what we are used to.”

The Spirit Global Design Challenge will continue next year with possible expansion to a university from India. Wichita State has participated annually in the program since 2008. For more information on the challenge, visit http://webs.wichita.edu/?u=2020&p=/global/global/.