What began as a senior capstone project for aerospace engineering students at Kent State University has grown into a full-fledged student organization preparing to take flight in a national competition.
The student project, now known as “Tim and Ted’s Excellent Adventure,” or TED, was originally developed for the Design, Build, Fly competition hosted by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA). Despite learning their team proposal had not been accepted into the 2024 competition, students in the College of Aeronautics and Engineering refused to ground their ambitions.
“After finding out that our proposal was not accepted by AIAA, our entire team was understandably disheartened,” said Haley Dees, a senior in aerospace engineering and project manager. “However, we took this as a challenge and as an opportunity to persevere and succeed even without a competition to attend. We wanted to make sure that the project outlives us.”
With support from college faculty, sponsors and their peers, the team built four aircraft prototypes—each iteration flying further, faster and with greater efficiency than the last. TED’s final version was showcased at a year-end technical presentation attended by families, faculty and industry partners.
“For me, it was TIM and TED's Excellent Adventure that really makes me the proudest,” Dees said. “That event marked the culmination of a year's worth of work, as well as four years' worth of dedication and friendship throughout our degree.”
Aerospace engineering major Cooper Flora served as the team’s aerostructures lead and also documented their work through videography. He said the turning point came during their first test flight.
“During the first test flight, I realized this was more than theory,” Flora said. “It was reality, and we were just breaking through.”
The project provided hands-on engineering experience far beyond the classroom, reinforcing skills in teamwork, leadership and problem-solving.
“You don’t become a team by assigning each other tasks,” Flora said. “You become a team when you all have this morale of ‘we are in this together’ and ‘we need to get this thing done because that’s what we said we’d do.’”
Students credited faculty mentor Benjamin Kwasa, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the College of Aeronautics and Engineering, with challenging them to be thoughtful and intentional about their designs.
“Dr. Kwasa would always challenge me to have a firm reason as to why I am making this—even small—design choice,” Flora said. Through this experience, he learned not only how to design complicated parts, but also how to analyze them and predict points of failure.
The team also benefited from generous support by sponsors, who provided funding, materials and professional guidance. Dees said the project would not have been possible without their contributions.
“Our sponsors were the best,” she said. “Projects like ours are incredibly complex, and truly not possible without the support of awesome sponsors such as ours.”
The sponsors included:
- Kent State College of Aeronautics and Engineering
- Ohio Space Grant Consortium
- DuPont Vespel
- High Temperature Systems
- The Technology House
- Humtown Pattern Company
- Cleveland Wire Cloth and Manufacturing
In total, seven capstone seniors and about 15 underclassmen contributed to the TED project under the guidance of Kwasa and Xuanhong An, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the college—demonstrating the college’s focus on innovative learning experiences and meaningful industry engagement.
For Flora, the experience helped solidify his future plans. “This project has further shown me that I can explore both my technical and creative sides within engineering,” he said.
Dees, who coordinated with sponsors and external partners, is now pursuing a career in science communication and public engagement.
“To borrow the words of many friends and mentors,” she said, “fail fast, pivot and re-attack. Make mistakes quickly and learn from them even faster.”