This summer, two Orange Coast College students participated in Base 11’s fellowship program. Fakhirah Mohd Khairuddin spent two months at UC Irvine’s Samueli School of Engineering, working on a team designing and building a working drone, under the guidance of a graduate student mentor. She learned to use SolidWorks software for design, and took advantage of the campus’ RapidTech and Fab Works tools to build the four-winged drone, or quadcopter.
Meanwhile, at University of Southern California’s Viterbi School of Engineering, Hugo Villafana collaborated with two other community college students to conduct research on the aerodynamics of small drone wings. They used the school’s wind tunnel, and were mentored by faculty member Wilson Chan, Ph.D.
Fakhirah and Hugo lived on their respective college campuses and got paid during the summer. This fall, they are both transferring to four-year universities to study engineering!
Meet OCC’s Base 11 Fellows:
Fak
hirah Mohd Khairuddin
“Engineering is mostly based on experience, not books. We built this [drone] by 80% experience and 20% book. The experiences of flying something we built is unforgettable.”
Watch this video of Fakhirah and the other Base 11 Fellows at UCI.
Hugo Villafana
“This experience helped me confirm that I’m on the right track, and I am definitely doing my passion. This experience motivated me more to want to get my master’s degree and a Ph.D. related to propulsion.”
Read more about Hugo and his Base 11 internship and fellowship experiences at USC and Caltech.