Vanderbilt Aerospace Design Laboratory

Vanderbilt rocket team at the NASA USLI competition at Bragg Farms in Toney Alabama, April 13, 2024.   Rocket team members are staying in the lab this summer to work on two designs of the drone that netted the team a second place award in the coveted AIAA Reusable Launch… Read More

VADL Senior Team, front row (l-r) Marissa Schwarz, Zachary Friedman, Joseph Aquino, Kai Malcolm, Thomas Colicci; back row (l-r) Ozgur Orun, Abdul-Latif Gbadmoshie, Sebastian Bond, Ethan Mayer, Kellen Lively, Brian Knapp. Emeritus trustee creates Dalton Vanderbilt Aerospace Design Laboratory Fund to support lab’s vision A devoted and longstanding Vanderbilt University… Read More

Vanderbilt Rocket Team members (L-R) Will Wu, Nick Pieper, Ryan Burinescu, Jon Marchineck, Will Reisner, Cameron Schepner, Alif Emazuddin, Ali Kilic and Alex Stevens in front of their Phoenix Rocket prior to lift off in Shelby Park, Memphis, on May 1, 2021. The Vanderbilt Rocket Team placed second in the… Read More

The Vanderbilt Aerospace Design Lab team claimed top honors in the 2020 Student Launch competition. Team members (graduation placements in parenthesis) are, left to right, Alex Barnett, (Permobil); Matt MacDonald (GE); Ethan James (TBD); Kis Tamas (Stanford); Tristan Gilbert (UC Berkeley); Sophia Moak (GE); Jake Gloudemans (Boring Co.); Abbey Carlson… Read More

Schematic of the proposed Vanderbilt payload with autonomous guidance, sampling and recharge capability. NASA is challenging college and university rocket teams to design solutions for its proposed manned and unmanned planetary missions to the Moon and beyond. The agency is committed to landing American astronauts, including the first woman, on… Read More

Vanderbilt’s Aerospace Design Laboratory again earned top honors in NASA’s 2019 National Student Launch Competition, the Space Agency announced today. This is the lab’s sixth national championship, winning the top spot in the last seven years: 2019-2018 and 2016-2013. “The 2019 project has been one of our most complex experiments… Read More

Vanderbilt rocketry team at NASA Student Launch in Toney, Alabama, on Sunday April 8, 2018, before liftoff of their rocket Senor Cohete: L-R, Sara Tsai, Tristan Gilbert, Xavier Williams, Conner Morency, Kurt Lezon, Alex Byrd, Spencer Kallor, William Pagano, Taylor Parra, Peyton Fite, Dominic Ghilardi, Daniel Schneller, Ben Gasser, Katie… Read More

Rockets naturally roll during ascent, posing great difficulty in imaging objects on the ground. Engineering students in the Vanderbilt Aerospace Design Laboratory tackled that challenge. On Saturday, April 7, at the 2018 NASA Student Launch Competition in Toney, Alabama, they will demonstrate a payload design that helps capture image targets… Read More

The Wond’ry hosted the 2017 Nashville Mini Maker Faire, which attracted more than 4,000 visitors. (Susan Urmy/Vanderbilt) The Nashville Mini Maker Faire, held for the first time at The Wond’ry, attracted more than 4,000 visitors and 93 exhibitors – a jump in attendance of more than 50 percent and double… Read More

Vanderbilt rocketeers with their High Roller rocket at the NASA Student Launch Competition in Alabama. (Photo: VADL) Engineering students from the Vanderbilt Aerospace Design Laboratory earned the second place in the 2017 NASA-Orbital ATK Rocket Challenge. They received a cash prize of $2,500, an award created this year by the… Read More