Biographies
Faculty Advisor: Professor Scott K. Thomas had led four Senior Design teams (2004, 2005, 2006) to compete in the SAE AeroDesign East Competition, and has worked in the AFRL Propulsion Directorate at WPAFB for twelve years as a contractor on thermal management issues for aircrafts.
William Bennett: William Bennett is a graduate research assistant in the Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering at WrightStateUniversity. His research involves advanced propulsion technology for aerospace applications. William was a member of the Wright State University SAE AeroDesign East team, entering in the Micro Class. As team captain William led WrightState to a first place finish in their first year in the Micro Class. William has worked locally at Heapy Engineering. He was a part of a team responsible for very large building projects and will bring that experience to work for this team.
Steven Warrener: As a model aircraft hobbyist, Steven Warrener has been constructing, flying and designing his own model aircraft for 6 years. He is an accomplished R/C pilot and has flown models ranging from small electrics to pylon racers and 30% scale, multi-thousand dollar competition level aerobatic aircraft. Over the last two years, Steven has worked on an independent research project involving adaptive wing structures in which he designed, built and tested an 8.5’ scratch built UAV with telescopic wings. As a first time competitor in the Intel Science and Engineering Fair, Steven competed in the regional, state and international levels with this project, winning eleven awards and $58,000 in scholarships and prizes. These awards included a first place at regional, third at state, and a second overall in engineering at the grand awards for the international competition. Steven’s responsibilities in the AIAA project will be in the engineering and construction of the airframe, and will also serve as the team’s pilot.
Keith Vehorn: Keith Vehorn has participated in the hobby for the last year and just recently finished constructing his first airplane. Keith has always been involved in R/C and learning the conceptual principles of flying. His best aspects come when building something is complemented by his love and knowledge of physics. Keith graduated in the top twenty percentile of his high school class and hopes that his building skills can be of use to the team.
Jayme Carper:Jayme Carper graduated as Valedictorian from his high school class of 230 students. During the last few years, Jayme has had plenty of experience building different contraptions. He has built a hovercraft, a moped for the Science Fair, and a pair of gas-powered roller blades. Jayme was able to make it to the State Science Fair with his moped, where he received a superior rating. He also received a $40,000 Science and Mathematics scholarship to the college of Wooster. In the last year and a half, Jayme has grown an interest in flying model airplanes and was finally able to get the planes out this last year and begin working on another plane, the Big Stik 60.
Michael Sheridan:Michael Sheridan is a 2nd year student with a cumulative GPA of 3.84. He works for Advint, Advanced Integration, as a design inter. He has worked on various engineering projects and has one half a year of solid CAD experience. He graduated in the top 15 percentile of his high school class. He has a love for working with his hands and building something from scratch. His skill and ability to learn quickly will be of good use to the team.
Nick Hankinson:Nick Hankinson graduated in the top ten percentile of his high school class and was a National Honor Society member upon graduation. Nick is currently enrolled in the Honors Program and was placed on the Highest Deans List with a GPA of 4.0 in Spring Quarter of 2005. Nick was also part of Civil Air Patrol in Columbus, Ohio where he was educated with the concepts of the airplane and was given an opportunity to fly a commercial airplane in Encampment, a form of boot camp where cadets were taught team work, survival, uses of military equipment, and self-discipline. Nick’s squadron graduated Encampment as the number one squadron for cleanliness of barracks, self appearance, and squadron formation.