The department of Aerospace Engineering at Iowa State University has recently revised the curriculum for the senior design capstone project The objective of the course restructuring was to develop students that become valuable assets to the aerospace industry. To accomplish this task our students participate in a two-semester program where they perform aircraft conceptual and preliminary design. It should be noted, the design challenge requires the teams to design a full size vehicle to meet a given mission profile. In addition, the students must design, build and fly a demonstrator that highlights key features of their design. The mission requirements are purposely vague and the students are required to make design choices in an uncertain environment The instructor team provides the students with the knowledge and design tools to apply the lessons learned. In particular significant effort is made to inculcate with the knowledge of: (1) When to apply analysis techniques. (2) When to test (3) To develop the right mix of virtual and physical testing. In restructuring the course in this manner the students are forced to work in diverse and cross-functional teams and to understand and manage team dynamics. The integrated design methodology presented here was first developed in the early 1990's in the automotive sector. It was further improved in the early 2000's in the consumer goods segments. The methodology was implemented to reduce product development times thereby increasing the profitability of the organization. This investigation will demonstrate the key features of this design methodology through the application of the process to hypersonic vehicle design.
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