Katrina Hamdon

University of Alberta Aero Design (formerly, Aero Heavy Lift Group) is an engineering student group that designs and builds a fixed-wing, unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) capable of flying by remote control or autonomously and of carrying payload. Our team consists of students from a variety of disciplines that work together to design, finance, and build a new aircraft, from the ground up, every year. Our mission is to provide students valuable, practical experience and exposure to real-world problems that engineers may encounter in a full, from-scratch engineering process. Members can gain experience in computer-aided design (CAD); project management; hands-on construction and machinery; control systems; electrical power/propulsion systems; and trade studies, such as finite element analysis (FEA) and computational fluid dynamics (CFD). We compete in the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) Aero Design international competition every year against teams from all over the world, and are actively recruiting UAlberta engineering students who are keen to join our team and help develop the next UAV to bring to the competition.