Academic 2021-2022 Make to Innovate Projects
The following is the list of active M:2:I Projects for the 2021-2022 academic year. All active projects also have a website that you can find both in the table and in the drop down menu above.
| Project Logo | Project Name | Faculty Advisor | Project Leader | Project Type | Mission Statement | Website |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | BIG Idea | Matthew Nelson | Abigail Arens | Competition/Research | The 2022 BIG Idea Challenge provides undergraduate and graduate students the opportunity to design, develop, and demonstrate robotic systems with alternative rover locomotion modalities for use in off-world extreme lunar terrain applications. | Bid Idea Website |
| Boeing Experimental Flight | TBA | Tyler Chandler | Industry | The mission of Boeing Electric Flight is to determine the viability of producing a modern, 737-sized commercial aircraft powered with batteries instead of traditional fossil fuels. At the conclusion of the project, with the help of faculty and technical advisors, the project hopes to produce a document which can be delivered to Boeing that outlines the types of technical advancements which would be required to produce an electric aircraft, as well as what steps would be necessary to transition the commercial market towards greener electric aircraft. | Boeing Electric Flight Website | |
| Boeing Manufacturing | David Sly | Matthew Fiddelke | Industry | The mission of this project is to create an automated system that is capable of a quicker and more efficient wing to fuselage connection process, all while safely and securely holding a wing. Our project works and communicates directly with our Boeing representative, Dean Hawkinson, and many other faculty such as Matthew Nelson & Christine Nelson, Professor Dayal, and others. Although, outside of what our team does, this project gives students the opportunity to work in a team and get some legitimate, real-life engineering experiences.This project allows members to understand the obstacles and amount of work needed for a team to be successful | Boeing Manufacturing Website | |
 | Cardinal Flight | Travis Grager | John Akert | Service | Cardinal Flight is a UAV design and build team that focuses on VTOL/Transition wing aircraft. Fall semesters are design semesters, used for improving previous designs, while spring semesters are build semesters, used for constructing and testing the previous semesters design. | Cardinal Flight Website |
 | CyLAUNCH | Thomas Ward III | Michael Weber | Competition | The project will follow the outline provided by NASA. We will design a build a competetion rocket with payload. We will build and test subscale and actual size rockets. | CyLaunch Website |
 | CySat | Matthew Nelson | Kevin Gruhlke | Service | CySat aims to create a 3u CubeSat in which will conduct a technology demonstration mission in low earth orbit (LEO). It teaches students concepts relating to systems engineering and testing, which are valuable in the space industry and any engineering profession later on. CySat has predicted a remainder of two semesters of work as of July 27th, 2019 and will use this time to integrate the entire CubeSat and test for mission functionality before final hand off to our launch integrator, NanoRacks. CySat works in conjunction with NASA, NanoRacks, and various commercial and federal entities to make this possible for undergraduate students. | CySat Website |
| Drone Racing "Tempest" | Matthew Nelson | Lucy Gates | Competition | Tempest’s mission is to design and create a racing drone to compete in the Collegiate Drone Racing Association competition in 2023. We will work to make a drone made for speed, maneuverability, and fit requirements to win the competition. | Drone Racing "Tempest" Website |
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 | HABET | Matthew Nelson | Yuriy Stelmakh | Service | HABET provides a high-altitude platform for researchers at Iowa State, other M:2:I teams, or anyone interested to conduct research. | HABET Website |
| KSP | Matthew Nelson | Andrew Krall | Service | The goal of our group is to finish building a capsule/booth that will allow people to play the game KSP in a really engaging and interactive way. | KSP Website | |
 | MAVRIC | Matthew Nelson | Austin Schmitz | Competition | MAVRIC builds an analog Mars rover to compete against teams from around the world in the Canadian International Rover Challenge(CIRC) in Drumheller, Canada. It must be able to complete a variety of tasks such as analyzing soil samples for a specific substance, manipulating tools to complete repairs, drilling into the ground, and driving autonomously. These tasks are meant to represent what an actual Mars rover would be expected to do when astronauts land on Mars. | MAVRIC Website |
 | Micro-G | Tomas Gonzalez-Torres | Aaron Sampson | Competition | Students in this project will be competing in the Micro-G challenge from NASA. As part of this challenge students will work on developing tools that can operate in a zero-g environment. These tools will then be tested at the pool facility in Houston, TX. | Micro-G Website |
 | Nano Drone | Matthew Nelson | Reed Kohlmeyer | Research | The goal of the Nano Drone Challenge project is to explore novel solutions into the miniaturization of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). This will be done through research and prototyping of a nano-scale drone. | Nano Drone Website |
 | RAFF | TBA | William Cashen | Service | This project aims to provide a platform for testing free fall environments by the use of high-powered model rockets. In theory, a rocket could provide double the free fall duration of a high altitude drop. | RAFF Website |
| RECO: Removable Cutting for Cold Welding | TBA | Mehmet Sefer | Research/Course | We are developing a process/technology that aims to utilize cold welding in order to build structures in space. | RECO Website | |
 | STELLAR | Shahram Pouya | Preston Swager | Research | In the aerospace industry, the type of propulsion predominantly used on rockets and spacecraft is liquid propulsion. There has been an overwhelming desire from aerospace engineering students at Iowa State University to study and develop a liquid propulsion system. Iowa State University lacks the facilities to give hands-on experience to students with a desire to work on liquid propulsion in the aerospace industry. It is imperative that students be allotted an opportunity to learn and research fundamentals regarding liquid propulsion design and its applications to the aerospace industry. As the rocket industry is changing, implementing research into areas of reusability as it pertains to rockets is imperative to prepare aerospace engineering students for the current rocket industry. Through inert fluid research and design, students will be given the hands-on experience with liquid nozzles in a non-combustible experimental environment. | STELLAR Website |
Archived Projects
The following are projects that are no longer active in Make to Innovate. They have been archived here.