A group of students watched eagerly as a small quadcopter attempted to navigate itself to the exit of a maze. Looking down into the knee-height labyrinth made of oversized Lego-style bricks, students at the Purdue UAS Research and Test Facility (PURT) cheered for the autonomous drone as it went through openings successfully. Laughter and words of encouragement came as the drone recovered after buzzing its propellers against the maze walls.

Since at least 1966, graduating seniors in aeronautical and astronautical engineering have been designing, constructing and flying paper airplanes toward the stage at Commencement.

On his final semester at Purdue, Alex Kardashian redeemed himself for his previous attempt at the Purdue Grand Prix. Mere weeks before graduating and heading to work in missile defense at Northrop Grumman, Kardashian stepped out of his go-kart at the Purdue Grand Prix race track and accepted his winner’s trophy for the 65th running of the race.

AAE has moved up! The aeronautical and astronautical graduate engineering program is now ranked No. 5, higher by one spot, in the current US News & World Report rankings released Tuesday.

AAE's Yu developing design tools for outer space structures