The Canadian aerospace company headquartered in Ottawa specializes in design and construction of full-scale turbine engine test facilities for aerospace, industrial and marine applications.

Carleton University co-op students were asked to nominate an employer that contributed to their professional growth. Aerospace engineering student Jeff MacDougall-Clumpus didn’t hesitate to cite his employer.

In his letter of support, MacDougall-Clumpus wrote: “MDS fosters exceptional experiences for their co-op students because they spend the money, time and resources to provide in-depth training and mentoring opportunities for their students.”

MacDougall-Clumpus was surprised at the level of activities to which he was entrusted by his supervisor, Joe Hajjar. The second-year student had the opportunity to lead projects with clients and travel internationally to meet with them, as well as to work on classified projects.

“I would highly recommend MDS to other co-op students who are looking for a work placement where they will experience not only academic growth but also a great deal of career and personal growth as well.”

“Incorporating co-op students into our projects and daily work is a natural choice for us,’’ said Haijar. “Carleton University engineering students have brought an energy and enthusiasm into our workplace that we value. It’s even more rewarding when we are able to hire these co-op students after graduation. Carleton’s co-op program is a partnership we have enjoyed and will continue to support for many years to come.”

MDS has hired Carleton University’s co-op students for nearly 15 years.

The winner, third-year aerospace engineering student Bradley Jung, worked in the Flight Recorder Playback Centre – a Transport Canada accredited aircraft maintenance facility where flight recorder systems – or black boxes – are analyzed.

Jung developed a computer program that constructs a path estimate using the aircraft’s heading, attitude and wind data – this is called “dead reckoning.’’ This path is then used by engineers in the reconstruction of an aircraft accident. The user can pick the corresponding 3D aircraft and the entire scenario can be recreated using X-Plane or Google Earth.

In one incident, Jung’s supervisor Patrick Zdunich was using two different software packages on separate computers to reconcile a dead-reckoned path. After discussing the problem with his co-op student, Jung had the problem solved by the next day and the program revised to eliminate the iteration.

The newly revised program has already been used in two high-profile incidents, resulting in the Lab’s ability to deliver crash results and analyses quicker.

“Bradley was a truly exceptional co-op student – not just the top one per cent but the very best I’ve seen in the last five years,” said Zdunich.

Jung also worked on creating a Windows application that grabbed flight data from the black box to recreate the scenario in Google Earth or X-Plane.

Brian French, land equipment program manager at the Department of National Defence, and Alexander Rink, CEO of local start-up company Gazaro, are Carleton University’s 2012 Co-op Employers of the Year.

Rink and French were nominated by their Carleton University co-op students.

Aerospace engineering students Alexandra Therien and Jack Vedelago shared why they nominated French:

“Brian played the greatest part in making our co-op term a success. He was an excellent mentor, who always took the time to follow our progress and give advice. He let us figure out what needed to be done and then gave us the freedom to do it.”

Both students so enjoyed working at DND that they offer this piece of career advice to their fellow engineering classmates: “DND is a great opportunity for young engineers looking for a career. There is a lot of demand and plenty of interesting jobs available. We recommend it without reservation to all engineering co-op students.”

Of his co-op students, French said: “Jack and Alexandra worked side-by-side with DND engineers and technologists to achieve their goals. They demonstrated strong interpersonal skills and judgement that earned them significant respect. Our engineering community would be all the richer, if and when the time comes, they chose to pursue their career goals with DND.”

For engineering students on the job hunt, French shared that DND has an engineering-in-training program to hone the skills of co-op graduates interested in bridging into the public service.

For employers who have never hired a co-op student French continued: “Hiring co-op [students] is an investment in all of our futures – for the students, DND and ultimately for Canada.”

“A customized penetrator weighing 10 kilograms, fitted with specific instruments, and shaped like an artillery shell, can be deployed to impact a celestial body at high speed and become buried in its surface. It’s a relatively inexpensive way to gather data,” says Natasha Jackson, a student in her last year of the aerospace engineering program. “The advantages of penetrators include low mass, ease of deployment, good mechanical contact with the surface, subsurface access, and a temperature-stable and radiation-protected environment.”

Jackson spent four-months as a co-op student at the Canadian Space Agency developing a micro-penetrator concept for exploration of Saturn’s moon Enceladus. Allowed to collide with the frozen surface, the penetrator would embed itself one or two meters and perform scientific investigations related to geology and astrobiology.

Tasked with identifying suitable targets and missions, Jackson learned about the priorities and behaviours of space agencies. The concept team chose the ice moon Enceladus because its southern pole has shooting ice plumes that imply there is liquid water near the surface.

“Enceladus hasn’t received much attention, but it is of interest to micro-biologists,” Jackson says. “Astrobiology is really being stressed in upcoming missions.”

With a target secured, Jackson worked through the operational subsystems the micro-penetrator required.

“It was an ideal assignment,” she says. “Working on the system as a whole enhanced my knowledge of the design considerations and how they are inter-related. It showed me the breadth of work that goes into space system design.”

Jackson was one of 17 Faculty of Engineering and Design students nominated for Carleton’s Co-op Student of the Year. Her supervisor Wanping Zheng, manager of space structures, thought the project would be beyond the capabilities of an undergrad student.

“The conceptual design of a micro-penetrator platform requires good knowledge of spacecraft and the skills of an experienced system engineer. Natasha accomplished all the tasks with high quality and made significant contributions to the project,” he says.

For Jackson, the practical engineering knowledge she gained was matched by the soft skill development that comes from working with professionals.

“Co-op placements help students develop technical skills as well as soft skills such as report writing and making presentations,” says Jackson. “I’d advise other students to think about the skills they want to develop and to discuss these with their supervisors, who can often steer a work term towards such development. In the end, the transferable skills developed during a work term are much more important than the specific subject matter of the work.”

More information on Carleton’s cooperative education opportunities