Reminder “Barbeque Roll of a Near Axisymmetric Spacecraft” – Virtual Presentation 10/29

SAWE members you have seen the email invitation to the SAWE-Hampton Roads (10/29 12:00PM Eastern U.S ) virtual chapter meeting. This is just a reminder that the presentation, the first half of the meeting, is open to all members. But the Zoom link is sent privately as only 100 slots are available and we are avoiding the phenomena of “zoom bombing”.

Contact Jeffrey.a.cerro@nasa.gov if you would like to attend and still need the meeting invitation/link.

Note that for anyone who is unable to download the ZOOM application. You can click on the meeting link, then select “Launch Meeting”, and then select “Join from your browser”.

Carlos M. Roithmayr is a senior aerospace engineer in the Systems Analysis and Concepts Directorate at the NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. He earned a Bachelor of Aerospace Engineering degree at the Georgia Institute of Technology, both an M.S. and a Degree of Engineer in Aeronautics and Astronautics from Stanford University, and a Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology. He began his career with NASA at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. His research interests include dynamics of multibody mechanical systems, spacecraft attitude dynamics and control, and orbital mechanics, and he has contributed to a wide variety of Agency projects and missions. He is author or coauthor of one book and numerous refereed journal papers. Dr. Roithmayr is a senior member of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

Less Weight = GO FAST

On November 7th 2019 The SAWE San Diego Chapter partnered with San Diego State University’s Formula SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers) team Aztec Racing to host an university outreach event. SAWE San Diego President Brian Wang gave a presentation on an overview of mass properties engineering and the SAWE while students were treated to pizza and refreshments provided by the chapter. The event was a huge success and was received well by a packed room of enthusiastic engineers that are pursuing degrees ranging from mechanical, aerospace, electrical, biomedical, and many more! After the presentation a Q&A session was held where students and chapter members were heavily engaged discussing topics ranging from career experience to how can Aztec Racing be more weight conscience in their 2020 design. Following, SAWE San Diego presented Aztec Racing with a hard copy of The SAWE Weight Engineers Handbook to add to their library and also encouraged students to join SAWE to receive the many benefits provided for free! Finally a generous tour of Aztec Racing’s garage shop was conducted by President Dani Phan and Chief Engineer Austin Hoang. Many questions were asked from how can the team validate the 2020 car’s weight, CG and inertia while chapter members were able to discuss possible solutions. The SAWE San Diego Chapter is currently in discussions on formally supporting Aztec Racing in an advisory role.

Aztec Racing Formula SAE Team is a 501(c)3 non-profit student-run organization at San Diego State University.  Formula SAE is an international collegiate design competition focused on a student designed and manufactured open wheel race car. Every year the team is tasked with raising funds to design, build, test, and compete nationally against competing collegiate teams.

From Left: Aztec Racing Chief Engineer: Austin Hoang, SAWE San Diego Member: Tracy Strand, SAWE San Diego VP: Buda Kasthuri, SAWE San Diego Treasure: Alan Perez, SAWE San Diego President: Brian Wang, SAWE San Diego Director: Jared Turnak, SAWE San Diego Member: Doug Fisher, Aztec Racing President: Dani Phan

The Rocky Mountain Chapter January ’19 Adventure

It is winter here in the Rocky Mountains.  Snow falls almost every day, and finally our property looks like what one would expect for a home in the mountains in the winter.  Gone are the swaths of brown grass with occasional patches of snow, the roof of the house and shop are covered in white just like the trees and ground.  The driveway is bordered by snow cliffs where the snowblower hasn’t touched, and despite repeated runs of the snowblower, the driveway itself is snowpacked as the sun has failed to melt the last little bit.  Exercise means using the treadmill and shoveling the porch and boardwalk, as the trail system is obliterated under a carpet of white.

My driveway is snowpacked!

Rather than be snowbound, the SAWE Rocky Mountain Chapter scheduled a fun day and we headed southwest down US 285 towards the ski town of Breckenridge.  The objective – the annual International Snow Sculpting Festival.

20 ton cubes of packed snow

They start with 20 ton cubes of packed snow for each entry.  The artists then use saws, chisels, planes, shovels, and other implements to create works of art in the town square.  We had been there in 2015, and really enjoyed it, so a repeat trip sounded like fun.

The drive to Breckenridge was an adventure on its own.  We had kept our eye the weather report, and supposedly it would be clear but cold and windy in Breckenridge.  The weather cleared as our driver, Ric Roy, started up the north slope of Kenosha Pass.  Claire and I were passengers in the car with Ric and his wife Lisa.    The road was snowpacked but obviously plowed which eventually became dry pavement near the 9997 foot MSL summit.  For the only time on the trip is was prudent to drive anywhere approaching the speed limit.  From the top, South Park (yep THAT South Park, just like the TV show) beckoned below, covered in blowing snow.  Rounding the turn towards the west, we were hit by strong, gusty winds that blew snow across the road, which only got stronger as we descended into South Park.  At times, the visibility was only a few dozen or so feet with a wind reaching 50 mph.  We drove into Fairplay, where the wind finally died down.

Here we are entering the town of Alma, the highest incorporated town in North America at 10,361 feet MSL, at the base of Hoosier Pass

The drive over Hoosier Pass (11,542’ MSL) was relatively benign.  Coming into Breckenridge we hit ski traffic 5 miles out of town, and crept into town, where we found a parking space a couple of blocks away from the town square.  We walked down to see the sculpturing taking place.

The customary Breckenridge Brewery Bar
The view from the southern entrance
The Chinese showing off their Taikonauts
Dancing Hippos reminiscent of Fantasia taking shape
The finished Hippo sculpture
The local (Breckenridge) team’s entry, featuring the Snow God Ullr (pronounced Ooler) and his sack of snowballs with which he blesses the town of Breckenridge and the surrounding mountains with plentiful snowfall
1st place went to Team Mexico and their depiction of the mythical Cenote Monster (sorry, it was very cold and my gloved hand got in the picture)
And as a finale, Ric freezes his hands trying to get a picture
We had a meandering path from the car to the exhibits and to lunch before heading back home

After lunch at Moe’s Original Barbecue, we drove back to Pine, where Ric and Lisa dropped us off and we went our separate ways – although both Ric and Lisa and I were ultimately headed into central Denver!

As a final picture, this is looking Northwest from my house (elevation 8463 MSL) towards the 13,575 foot MSL Mount Rosalie and that triangular bump to her right is 14,246 foot MSL Mount Evans.

Robert Zimmerman

Rocky Mountain Chapter President

SAWE San Diego Chapter host San Diego State University outreach event

Back in November 9th, 2018 the SAWE San Diego Chapter teamed up with the San Diego State University’s College of Engineering Student council to host an outreach event. Students and attendees were treated to pizza and refreshments while chapter director Doug Fisher gave a very engaging presentation and discussed what is mass properties engineering and SAWE’s important role in the industry. Following the presentation an open forum discussion took place and fellow members shared their career experiences as a mass properties engineers. Thank you to SDSU CESC President Nik Marquez for hosting and Doug Fisher for a great presentation!

San Diego SAWE members w/ San Diego State University Students

Welcome to the SAWE – Presentation

Have you ever wanted more information to take to your management to support your Weight Engineering endeavors? Would you like to learn more about our society as it stands today?

Well Thanks to Mr. Damian Yanez of Gulfstream Aerospace Corporation, your wishes are now at your fingertips.

Navigate to

https://www.sawe.org/system/files/Welcome_to_SAWE_Company.pdf

and learn more. Use it to further your career, make a case for training, conference attendance, developing technical content, and even securing your company as a SAWE Corporate Partner.

Rescheduled 2018 Hampton Roads Regional Conference

As many of you may or may not be aware, the Regional Conference that was supposed to occur the 13th-15th of this month was forced to be rescheduled due to Hurricane Florence.

As of Friday, the Society of Allied Weight Engineer’s Regional Conference in Norfolk, Virginia has officially been rescheduled to November 29, 30, and December 1st.  With the assistance of D. Jay Feldman, we have established an addendum to our original contract that will result in no financial penalties to  the SAWE, honor all existing agreements with the hotel, and provide all the same outstanding rooms and support that were planned for the September timeframe that was interrupted by Hurricane Florence.  The other alternative date we were originally hoping for was not possible due to  the hotel not being able to provide some critical meeting spaces.  As you might expect there were several other groups competing for their spaces, not to mention the other groups that had already booked conference spaces.   Our host chapter will now be busy confirming speaker availability,  vendor participation, and determining details of how to handle hotel room reservations, etc.  They will be informing everyone of those details in the near future.

Our Co-Chairwomen and all involved in the preparation for this conference hope that the new dates are acceptable to all.  While the weather may be a bit cooler, there is very little chance of another hurricane affecting our plans.  Special thanks to D.Jay Feldman for his valuable assistance in negotiating with the hotel to get favorable terms and availabilities.  For those who don’t know, D. Jay has been involved in setting up our meeting contracts for every Regional and International conference as far back as I can remember.  His support is critical to our holding successful SAWE conferences.

To be kept up to date on information regarding the rescheduled Regional Conference, please check the blog as updates will be posted to here.  You can find up to date information also on the Regional Conference website  https://www.sawe.org/hamptonroads/2018regional/

You might be asking yourself, if I couldn’t go to the original Regional Conference, can I go to this one, and the answer is yes.  Check out the website for information and contact the Co-Chairwomen with any questions!

Those that were previously registered will need to re-register their hotel room.  Please check the website and email for the new code that will allow for you to re-register at the hotel.  This will be coming in the following days.  All previous hotel bookings were cancelled without penalty.

Thank you, and we in the Hampton Roads Chapter look forward to seeing you in Norfolk November 29, 30 and December 1st,

SAWE 2018 Awards

Early every calendar year, the SAWE Awards Committee emails chapter Directors in search of nominations for the Richard Boynton Lifetime Achievement, Honorary Fellow, Fellow, and Ed Payne Outstanding Young Engineer awards. The awards recognize exceptional young engineers as well as those who have contributed to the advancement of the society. The Awards Committee announces the winners at the yearly Awards Banquet held at the end of the International Conference. The winners announced at the Irving, Texas conference that just concluded include : Robert W. Ridenour (Saint Louis) – Richard Boynton Lifetime Achievement award, Clint Bower (United Kingdom) – Honorary Fellow award, Robert Hundl (Houston) – Honorary Fellow award, Ian David Bennett (Canada) – Fellow award, Claudia Rosenberger (Central European) – Fellow award, Dan Rowley (Los Angeles) – Fellow award, Clint Stephenson (Houston) – Fellow award, Brian Huber (Texas) – Ed Payne Outstanding Young Engineer award, Lori Sandberg (Houston) – Ed Payne Outstanding Young Engineer award, and Simone Umbach (Central European) – Ed Payne Outstanding Young Engineer award. Congratulations!

Scholarship Award, SAWE Texas 2018 International Conference

Congratulations to Matthew Knickerbocker of the University of Colorado Boulder for winning the scholarship awarded by the SAWE Texas 2018 International Conference. As a Junior studying Aerospace Engineering, some of his accomplishments to date include attaining the rank of Staff Sergeant with the United States Air Force, interning as an Engineer with the National Institute of Standards and Technology, making the Deans list since 2016, and being inducted into Sigma Gamma Tau, the national aerospace engineering society. Matthew intends to continue his studies to earn his BS and MS degrees. He aspires to specialize in aerodynamics and aircraft design to become an aerodynamicist on a modern aircraft program. Kudos Matthew. You are highly deserving of this award. The SAWE looks forward to your continued high level of success.

2018 SAWE Southwest Regional Conference

This conference was both more work and more fun than I expected. In late 2017 John Hargrave and Yi-Ling Tam from the LA chapter attended a meeting of the San Diego chapter and pitched the idea of putting on a regional conference in early 2018. Our San Diego chapter just restarted in 2017 – we have a small membership and only held a few meetings up to that time. “We can do this together!” John said. “It’ll be fun!” Yi-Ling said. “Ok, I’m in!” I said.

A little cheerleading and arm-twisting later, John and I are co-chairing weekly meetings of an enthusiastic conference committee. I’d never done anything like this before, so when I say “co-chairing” I mean I’m riding in John’s wake. In less than 8 weeks, our conference went off with barely a hiccup. I learned a lot and I’d probably do it again. In a few years.

The conference, hosted by the LA, San Diego and Mojave chapters was held March 8-10 at the Temecula Creek Inn in Temecula, California. The location was perfect – a small resort hotel in a beautiful area close to LA and San Diego. The food was great, the facilities and staff were excellent and the weather was lovely – other than raining on my golf game.

We had roughly 50 attendees split between the technical session and training class on Friday, and about two dozen people at training on Saturday. Most came from the local region, but some flew in from as far away as Europe. John tells me that is an excellent turnout for a regional.

The technical session chaired by John Nakai included seven technical presentations, four exhibitor presentations, and a panel discussion. I thought the panel discussion on cross-industry Standards and Practices hosted by Andy Shuster was informative and a welcome break from a day of lectures. Bill Boze and Clint Stephenson gave a tantalizing outbrief of their mass properties survey and they enlisted the whole audience in data mining. (You all took the survey, didn’t you? https://www.sawe.org/survey/) I thought the audience participation was a great way to drive interest and engagement with the topic. In a brief and touching speech, Megan Derrig put out a request for artifacts in remembrance of Jim Valentine, who had recently passed (megan.derrig@lmco.com). Finally, Errol Oguzhan invited us all to the 2018 international conference in Dallas – less than two months away!

Dan Rowley organized a generous training program. A class on the Automated Weight and Balance System (AWBS) was held by Harold Smoot on Friday. Two new classes were on Saturday: “Designing the Aircraft of the Future” with Andy Walker and Jerry Pierson, and “Materials and Mass Properties” with Victor Hillyard. Also on Saturday, a ShipWeight user’s session was held by Bruce Hays.

I’d like to thank our exhibitors Intercomp (who was also a sponsor), ShipWeight, Ensinger and i.e. Solutions, and our break sponsors Morf3D and Space Electronics for their generous support.

Many thanks to our hard-working conference committee, particularly to John Hargrave for keeping a steady hand on the tiller and to Ron Fox for being a great mentor.

Thanks also to the presenters and attendees. If you were an attendee I hope you were inspired to create and present a paper of your own next time. It may take some work, but it’s tremendously rewarding.

For those planning or considering a SAWE Regional Conference, here are some lessons learned from the conference committee:

The planning committee was in place and weekly teleconferences were held starting two months ahead of the conference date. That felt about the minimum amount of time to get everything done – but only because we stayed focused on the actions. Each meeting had an agenda and minutes with actions were taken. Webex or other live image sharing could have helped, but was not critical. Some committee members had difficulty communicating and sharing documents via email, possibly due to workplace firewalls. This could have been avoided with better use of Group-Office on the SAWE website.

We had good engagement from committee members and all had clear responsibilities. Committee members should be empowered to make decisions and recruit help from outside the committee as needed. Having two co-chairs to spread the load and Ron as mentor was a big help.

Ensure that all needed computers, projectors, screens, power cables, extension cords, data cables and data cable adapters (e.g. HDMI to VGA as needed) for all training, technical sessions and registration have been sourced and will work together. Consider making this the responsibility of an audio-video focal on the planning committee. We didn’t and had to scramble to recover.

The hotel facility in Temecula was the right location, the right size, had the right facilities and had good food and a great setting. Hotel staff was courteous and willing to work with us to make last-minute adjustments. An on-site visit to the facility during planning is a must.

Schedule training to start after the conference opening remarks. All attendees should have the opportunity to attend the opening.

Training instructors and the technical session host should arrive early for their class/ session to get the audio visual checked out, hooked up, and ready to go. Assume some adjustments will be required.

Use one computer to show all technical presentations. All presentations should be pre-loaded. Alternately, the computer should have a connection to SAWE Group-Office and all presentations uploaded to Group-Office (ensure that the hotel has an internet connection in the conference room). It couldn’t hurt to have all presentations both on the technical session host’s computer and in Group-Office, just to be sure. What if the host forgets his laptop?

Make sure that the scheduled times in Regonline, on the SAWE website announcement and in the program are accurate.

The committee discussed placing a tip jar in the hospitality suite to raise money for the scholarship fund. Nobody took the action and it was not done, but I think it’s a good idea for a future conference.

Apparently Regonline has a badge feature. We never noticed until after the conference. It may help future planners.

Use Regonline’s “aborted registration attempt” feature to identify people who tried to register but stopped before completion. They may need some help to sign up.

Getting exhibitors and sponsors takes a long time and is a group effort. Have a draft program to show potential exhibitors and sponsors so they can clearly understand what they are paying for.

Reach out to the International officers for advice and help.

Thank your exhibitors and sponsors, the host facility, conference committee and attendees!

Doug Fisher

New Chapter Arranged Training Policy

A new policy for Chapter Arranged Training as been produced.  This will be in the Operations Manual.  The purpose of this policy is to encourage local chapters to arrange and hold classes and to support the development of new classes. The Society encourages local SAWE chapters to utilize Training developed by the Society. Training is to be used as a resource to improve the local SAWE members’ technical abilities and also to be used to benefit the Chapter’s financial health. Since chapter arranged training can potentially incur a loss, or clash with International Conferences and On Site Training offerings, all chapter arranged training must be approved by the Vice President of Training in advance of a SAWE chapter marketing any class.  To read the full policy go to https://www.sawe.org/node/7636