You’re an aerospace designer racing against the clock to create a component for a rocket engine. No problem, you muse — you know the principles inside out, and the model appears suitable in CAD. However, upon examining the 3D-printed item you’ve contracted for production, you notice a flaw. The angle of the impeller blades is incorrect, and the diameter exceeds the intended design. The supplier is unresponsive. Before you know it, you’re exceeding the budget. A leak has manifested. During the pump testing, you find yourself puzzled by a strange vibration.
Effectively navigating such challenges can define an engineer’s career, yet real-time troubleshooting during assembly is an experience that few undergraduate students encounter as part of their education. Enter course 16.811 (Advanced Manufacturing for Aerospace Engineers), a newly established communication-focused lab course that enables juniors and seniors to oversee a complete engineering cycle, acquiring skills that replicate the obstacles they will encounter as professional engineers.
Within a span of just 13 weeks, students conceptualize, construct, and evaluate a laboratory-scale electric turbopump, which is utilized in liquid rocket propulsion systems to supply fuel and oxidizer to the combustion chamber at high pressures. Pairs or small groups of students traverse the full production workflow while managing budgets, documenting processes, and conducting tests.
This course was designed and delivered by Zachary Cordero, Esther and Harold E. Edgerton Associate Professor, alongside Zoltán Spakovszky, the T. Wilson Professor in Aeronautics, with support from a team of teaching assistants (TAs), technical instructors, and communication specialists. It debuted last fall, available to students who had completed Unified Engineering, the essential Course 16 curriculum which encompasses the four key disciplines in aerospace engineering. Upon announcement, it attracted so much attention that enrollment was determined by lottery.
“It’s often presumed that students will gain practical experience through extracurricular activities, but that isn’t always the case. Participants in this course acquire hands-on experience with cutting-edge design and manufacturing technologies, such as metal 3D printing,” states Cordero. “They don’t merely learn how to tackle a set problem — they understand what it means to be an engineer.”
Preparation for a rapidly changing field
The course originated from insights collected during an annual workshop organized by Cordero each summer, focusing on material challenges in reusable rocket engines. Industry, government, and academic representatives attending consistently highlighted the necessity for the upcoming generation of engineers to be knowledgeable about advanced engineering principles, in addition to possessing robust foundational skills. Familiarity with innovative computational design tools and processes, such as additive manufacturing, is increasingly crucial for success in the aerospace sector. “Our aim is to train, inspire, and motivate the next wave of aerospace engineers. We must heed what our industry partners desire from engineers and adjust our curriculum to fulfill that demand,” Cordero remarks.
Spakovszky, Cordero, and their team crafted the course over two years during Independent Activities Period workshops, creating distinct modules that illustrate concepts for constructing the turbopump. The initial set of labs concentrates on the impellers — the spinning bladed-disk components that intake fluid into the pump to increase its pressure. The subsequent lab dissects the rotor system that sustains the pump impeller, and the third lab addresses the assembly of the rotor into the casing followed by final testing.
Throughout the duration of the course, students receive guidance in technical communication and training on the complete range of machinery tools accessible in the Arthur and Linda Gelb Laboratory. Beyond understanding concepts and tools, most of the design and execution responsibilities lie with the students themselves.
“They are encouraged to learn how to self-educate,” explains Spakovszky. “The crucial aspect here is the absence of a definitive solution. In other classes, there’s a problem, and the educator provides the answer. This task is open-ended, and every group comes up with a unique design.” Each team is responsible for managing their project, with instructors and TAs acting as resources rather than directors. Teams collaborate with vendors to realize their designs. The students performed their machinery analysis employing the Agile Engineering Design System (AEDS) and Advanced Rotating Machine Dynamics (ARMD) software tools from Concepts NREC. Impellers were fabricated at the MIT SHED (Safety Health Environmental Discovery lab), with assistance from Tolga Durak, managing director of environment, health, and safety, along with industry partners at Desktop Metal.
“Many of the design inquiries we addressed do not have clear-cut answers,” remarks junior Danishell Destefano. “I gained significant insights into how to navigate technical literature and evaluate design trade-offs to arrive at my own conclusions.”
In action
“Creating components is quite challenging,” says Spakovszky. “Besides producing parts and components, assembling rotating machinery demands precise tolerances of part dimensions and meticulous manufacturing of interfaces to adhere to design specifications.”
Central to the curriculum is the manufacturing process itself, with its numerous components presenting a distinct challenge for students who may not have encountered the rapid design cycles that are increasingly common in the field. The course applies concurrent engineering as a method to highlight the interdependencies between fundamental principles, functional needs, design, materials, and manufacturing processes.
Student teams record their lab outcomes in written reports and deliver regular updates through presentations. Lecturer Jessie Stickgold-Sarah taught the class on professional communication skills. By the semester’s conclusion, students depart with the ability not only to innovate but also to articulate their innovations effectively.
“I found it rewarding to engage with this group of students,” states Stickgold-Sarah. “The primary paper and presentations required students to convey their reasoning through the design-build-test framework, explaining and justifying their decisions based on their technical comprehension of core principles. They demonstrated immense dedication and hard work, and the quality of the papers and presentations they produced surpassed my expectations.”
The course culminates in a concluding presentation, where teams display their findings and receive feedback from their MIT instructors and industry professionals — potential future colleagues and employers.
Whether or not students transition directly into careers involving rocket or jet propulsion, the extensive skills they acquire in class are applicable across various disciplines. “The most valuable skill I’ve gained is time and project management. Constructing a pump in a single semester presents a significant timeline challenge, and discovering how to manage my time and collaborate with a team has been an invaluable soft skill,” Destafano notes.
The course emphasizes the reality that the manufacturing process can be as pivotal as the end product itself. “I hope they emerge with the confidence to explore the unknown and navigate uncertainty in engineering systems,” Cordero expresses. “In the actual world, things are leaking. Outcomes may not align with initial expectations or behave as anticipated. The students had to adapt and respond. That’s real life. It’s somewhat intuitive, somewhat common sense, sure — but this skill can be refined, and confidence in that skill can be nurtured.”