Student Groups

The AIAA Student Chapter organizes opportunities for students to learn outside the classroom, including student engineering projects, outreach events, laboratory tours, and presentations from industry professionals. The chapter also helps students develop connections with professionals and employers. 

The CanSat Competition is an annual event hosted by the American Astronautical Society (AAS) and the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA). The event provides valuable hands-on-experience managing the complete, end-to-end life cycle of a complex engineering project.  

Gopher Motorsports is a student-run motorsport team that designs, tests, and manufactures a formula styled open wheel EV race car that competes each year at Michigan in June. Every major is able to try out every subteam, but specifically aerospace engineers and the Aerodynamics team focus on CFD simulations for our aero package, CAD designing for the physical aero design, and manufacturing process for the package. Additionally, their Aerodynamics team works with composites and carbon along with a trip to Ford or Delta to test their aero package in a full size wind tunnel to collect more data and validate numbers within simulations.

The Lunabotics Team competes in the NASA Lunabotics competition, previously known as the NASA Robotic Mining Competition, an annual competition hosted by NASA at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Teams build robots that mine in a simulated Lunar environment, where the floor of the arena consists of gravel covered by a layer of packed lunar regolith simulant. Robots are tasked with crossing the arena while avoiding obstacles, gathering lunar regolith, and depositing the regolith to build a berm.

The Minnesota Space Grant Consortium (MnSGC) is a University outreach program from NASA under AEM, which provides students with scholarships/fellowships, internships with NASA, and many other opportunities for involvement. Activities range from a Stratospheric Ballooning team and quadcopter design to high power rocketry competitions.

The University of Minnesota Rocket Team brings together undergraduate students from a wide variety of majors to work together on the construction and launch of multiple high-powered rockets throughout the school year. 

Team competitions include Spaceport America Cup, Space Grant Midwest High-Power Rocketry Competition, and the Big Ten Alka Rocket Challenge.

The SAE Aero Design Competition gives undergrad students the opportunity to design and fly a light-weight, UAV-style aircraft. The competition also provides real world challenges that engineers have to face every day, forcing students to adapt and change their aircrafts in order to meet the requirements of the competition.

The Solar Vehicle Project is a student administered, designed, and built project that teaches members about engineering and management in a complete product development environment. The team has built thirteen solar vehicles, and is one of the most decorated teams in America.

Originally founded by women engineers, the Society of Women Engineers (SWE) now prides itself on welcoming students of all identities into a supportive network of members and allies who share diverse experiences in STEM.
 

The UMN Small Satellite Project is a team of faculty and students from various departments at the University of Minnesota, working to build small satellites with the assistance of NASA and the U.S. Airforce. The team is currently in the process of designing and building the following satellites: EXACT and SOCRATES.