Few would disagree that most kids thoroughly enjoy playing with LEGOs. From the basic to the most complicated sets, kids can’t wait to use the iconic plastic interlocking bricks to build everything from legendary landmarks to robots and droids, futuristic structures, and so much more.
John Filburn and Joseph Hurley were no different. The two 20-year-old students at Virginia Tech both emphatically say they “loved” opening the LEGO boxes as children and setting out to build things, especially “big things.”
To them, that meant tossing the instruction booklets back into the boxes and then putting their imaginations as aspiring engineers to work.
“I had lots of LEGO sets,” Joe relates. “So I would try to tinker and manipulate pieces from different sets to make things other than what the directions called for. Plus, with airplane trips with my family, it wasn’t long until I put the two together. And ever since my realization that I could be someone who designs aircraft like the ones I did with my LEGO sets, I’ve had this passion.”
John -- who was so enamored with the building blocks that he attended LEGO Camp for several summers and was constructing drones to take photos while still in middle school -- offers similar recollections: “I remember getting my first LEGO set when I was five. It was a set to build a police car. But I wanted my police car to be a flying one. Maybe that’s where this comes from.”
“This” – to John and Joe – means forming a team of students at Virginia Tech and building an airborne emergency response vehicle for the global GoAERO challenge.
“GoAERO is the culmination of everything for me,” exclaims John, pointing out that with a father who was a medic in the Navy and a paramedic for more than 10 years and who, himself, served as a lifeguard, “1000 percent it is the humanitarian aspect of the competition that is the draw for me.”
Joe’s inspiration for participating in GoAERO comes from his uncle Daniel, a successful engineer who always “pushed the envelope when it came to innovation. He made a point to explain engineering principles in everyday settings to me. And although he doesn’t work in the aerospace industry, he always encouraged me to pursue what I wanted to build and even helped me pick out Virginia Tech. Even today he continues to solidify the endless potential of engineering.”
He notes that he wasn’t specifically hooked on creating a flyer in the emergency rescue category until the GoAERO challenge. “Flying constructions never failed to pique my interest, whether it was a drone, aircraft, or even a paper airplane. Combining this with my passion for innovation, I always knew what I wanted to build.”
Now, however, participating in something with such a “big purpose,” with the potential of being able to have an impact all over the globe, “nothing gives me a better feeling than working on this. It’s so noble and valuable to society,” stresses the native of Northern Virginia and the DC area who is treasurer of VT GoAERO team.
John echoes these sentiments, relating that he became passionate about emergency rescue around the time he was entering college. “I believe it is one of the most -- if not the most -- positively impactful applications of aerospace engineering,” he stresses.
Joe and John, who was raised in Maryland and is team president, among his other leadership positions at the university, say that a benefit of the competition is that it encourages collaboration.
With their team being student–run and university-based, the two dozen members have many diverse perspectives and inputs. That, Joe asserts, is an advantage, “if we can channel all these ideas and plans effectively.” He adds that it’s also easy to shift gears on their work to more appealing aspects if they stimulate project progression.
Joe explains that since the competition guidelines for the actual emergency response flyer are fairly open-ended, “it leaves a lot of room for imagination. Our biggest challenge is being able to take everyone’s vision and decide which one to work on first.”
John wholeheartedly agrees; he values everyone’s opinion, “yet it is hard when opinions conflict. So, the challenge is agreeing on something without diminishing anyone’s voice. I plan to overcome it by maintaining order within discussions and critically weighing the pros and cons of each decision.”
They acknowledge there are plenty of other challenges, one being that as students the team members don’t have the experience of seasoned engineers. “So it’s a tall task,” John says.
As a result, the team has been watching all the expert lectures on the GoAERO site and are looking forward to working with the competition mentors in their quest to build the most effective and efficient flyer.
“The expert webinars have been extremely helpful for providing technical insight and team trajectory,” Joe explains, adding that he finds “excitement in all aspects of the competition, from the engineering of the challenge itself to the future implications of the flyer.”
John also points to the essentiality of the webinars, explaining that “the entire team is watching them to gain a better understanding of the project.”
Their overarching mission is to build a flyer that will be able to save lives no matter the circumstance, and to reach any place where help is needed no matter the terrain or weather, because emergencies can happen anywhere under countless conditions. Fires, water rescues, and high-altitude extractions will be their priority.
And while manufacturing their GoAERO emergency response flyer is among their priorities – that and their coursework, of course – they are still college kids who appreciate an extracurricular activity on occasion. Interestingly, even then engineering and aviation must be top-of-mind, since Joe’s favorite movie is “Transformers” and John’s is “Top Gun Maverick.”
To highlight your GoAERO Team, contact us at info@goaeroprize.com.
