Last May, four University of Georgia engineering students traveled to NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia to present an idea that would win them a top award. For their final capstone project in UGA’s engineering program, Jerry Gonzalez, Owen Nesbit, Ishaan Patel and Quinn Rodier entered into NASA’s Gateway to Blue Skies Forum, a student aircraft maintenance competition, and took home the Future Game-Changer Award.
The theme of this year’s competition was RepAir: Advancing Aircraft Maintenance, with submissions being possible ways to increase safety and productivity in aviation by 2035.
Advised by department of engineering faculty Kevin Wu and Ramana Pidaparti, the students came up with Quantum Sensing Aerial Reporting (QuaSAR) — an innovative way to monitor stress levels on different commercial aircraft parts…