MaterialsInMotion

Today’s distinguished speaker event finally showed me how material science can be applied in the industry.

Sara Langberg is an aeromechanical engineer at AeroVironment and was part of the team that built Ingenuity, the first helicopter to fly on Mars, let alone another planet. In her talk, she discussed some of the mechanisms of the helicopters, challenges she and the team encountered during production, and the discoveries made during the 72 flights that Ingenuity took.

One of the most interesting parts of Langberg’s talk was her explanation of the helicopter’s landing mechanism. She explained that since our understanding of Mars’s atmosphere is very limited, the team didn’t know how certain lubricants would behave on the planet, so they had to carefully select materials to naturally minimize friction and make the mechanism more durable.

After her talk, a few of my friends and I stayed behind to ask Langberg some questions related to both her work and her career. She shared that she actually never knew beforehand that she wanted to go into the aerospace industry, but rather she managed to land a return offer after her internship at AeroVironment between her third and fourth year at UC Davis.

The biggest piece of advice that she gave us was to always point yourself in a direction that you’re curious because you’ll always be pursuing something that interests you. She explained that people tend to get caught up in trying to achieve big but never understand what makes themselves happy, but with the approach that she advised us to take, every step of the way will be one that we enjoy.