Adventures with the AIAA

What a great year we had with AIAA over the last school year! It was a year for rebuilding, revamping, and restructuring – and the end result was phenomenal! Not only was a new constitution drafted and ratified, but general meetings were redone to be more organized and provide better and more direct feedback from students attending. We also tried to have a student or professor speaking at each one, along with the favorite draw of free pizza. Tons of other background documentation and paperwork was set up to help facilitate the group keep records and continue to grow.
The year started off in the summer with a goal to get the office redone to be cleaner, more professional, and a more effective place for students to hang out and study. Thanks to the efforts of a great crew of people, we were able to get the walls repainted and a wicked cool blue stripe added for accent. We also got a brand new fridge as well as a newer couch and desk. Some of the old, lesser used items were cleaned out to provide more space.
With the new look in the office, we had started to put a new, more active face on the organization. We started the year off with a Welcome BBQ where we had free food for students of all sorts. The AEM department helped us out with getting this going and we hope that it will be an annual fall events to welcome aerospace students back to school.
Another big fall event that we had was a trip to the Eau Claire Planetarium and Hobbs Observatory. Through connections with the University of Eau Claire, AIAA was able to travel and see a planetarium show, learn constellations, have dinner with the UWEC Society of Physics Students, and, of course, watch the classic Men in Tights. The evening would have included a trip to the Hobbs Observatory to see the real stars; however, the weather just did not want to cooperate. This is another event that AIAA hopes will occur on a yearly basis and hopefully the weather will cooperate next year.
Aside from the big events in fall, AIAA also started up a RC Plane Club division through the help of Prof. Hammer. This sub-club provided interested students with the chance to get some hands on experience with RC planes, both in terms of flying and building. One of the winter and spring projects that was started included having students design and build profile models that would be flown with the club equipment. On the plate for the future of the RC Plane Club is to get started on a SAE Heavy Lift vehicle over the summer and maybe actually get it entered into the contest for next year.
At the end of both fall and spring semester, AIAA hosted a shindig to honor active members and, of course, free food and tons of fun! The fall shindig was held at Gameworks in downtown Minneapolis and, along with active member certificates, gag awards were also handed out with appropriate stories and chuckle to go with them. Spring found AIAA wanting to host a students vs. staff softball game, but the weather did not want to cooperate, so the festivities were moved indoors. At the spring shindig, several professors attended and were able to witness both the ridiculous slide show of memories and the gag awards. At this shindig, recognition certificates were handed out to all officers and AEM staff and faculty that helped us get the group going again.
The Branch Report that was sent back to AIAA was 112 pages long and contained summaries and signs on more than 50 events held for the entire year. We had guest speakers, from somebody from Boeing to a graduate student out of Madison to even a Roger Launius, a distinguished lecturer. There was also informational events like a Matlab Information session and Prof. Hammer’s Industry Spiel. We even had a few bake sales to help raise funds. Regular events like movie nights or intramural softball may not have always been a big draw, but still offered the opportunity to hang out with fellow aerospace majors and meet new people. Some events took a lot of planning and fell through due to circumstances beyond our control – like the Imax projector breaking down or lack of professors showing up to the rescheduled softball game. Don’t worry, next year we will be challenging the professors, faculty and staff to a game and, so far, the students are technically undefeated.
Looking back on the year, we accomplished something that was absolutely phenomenal. We set our aim high and, though we may not have hit the moon, we definitely landed among the stars. Kudos for a job well done go out to the out-going officer crew. They worked as a team to ensure that there would be activities of all sorts for the students that were interested. As for the incoming officers, they have a lot to live up to but they are ready and willing to take the mantle that has been passed on. The next crew of officers is enthusiastic to keep the group alive and growing – they definitely will do a great job with AIAA.

Theresa Krack, President 05-06