Aircraft design for second-year undergraduate students

As part of our department's 'learn by doing' curricular philosophy, and to help infuse design throughout our curriculum, we have evolved a sophomore-level programming course into an introduction to aerospace design course. The evolution has occurred over the past three years, as we have increasingly added design requirements to the course. We have found that sophomores can learn a great deal from designing a complex system with the use of software or semi-empirical design methods to supplement their lack of background knowledge. We have used new, innovative aircraft specifications to get the students to think about requirements, markets, and the importance of customer-based thinking in the design cycle.