UVM’s Discover Engineering Day
Study Hall
Museum-style visualization tools showcasing Beta’s electric aircraft.
Dates
June 2021 – June 2024
Team
Shannon Murphy, John Cohn, Aaron Grossman
Interns: Isa Verna, Crawford Phillips
Role
Mechanical Design Engineer & Team Lead
Skills
Fabrication: 3D Printing, Laser Cutting, Power Tools
Design: Solidworks, Adobe Illustrator, Design for Travel
Leadership: Public Speaking, Mentoring, Project Management
Demos @ Work!
A core philosophy of the Study Hall program is the belief in learning by doing. Every demo was intentionally designed to be interactive and multi-sensory to deliver information effectively for different learning styles. Built for all ages and long road trips, the demos were deliberately over-engineered to ensure durability and versatility.
UVM’s Discover Engineering Day 
Leading an internal training 
UVM’s Discover Engineering Day UVM’s Discover Engineering Day 
School tour @ Beta 
School tour @ Beta 
Isa and Mega-Demo 
Fun with Flight Controls 
Aaron showing off the charge demo
Origin Story
This 3 hour project marked the beginning of the Study Hall program, and later became the Flight Controls Model.
Features
- Scrap Metal
- Laser cut Alia model
- 3D Printer fans
- Batteries
Building Stuff!
Building the Gen 5 Battery Demo 
Re-sizing the Charge Demo 
Flight Controls Demo mock-up 
Flight Controls Demo – Prototype 1 
Flight Controls Demo – Linear Actuator Prototype 
Curing carbon fiber for manufacturing demos with Kyle
Systems Demo
A culmination of all individual demos, with the goal of depicting key interconnected systems.
Motor
- Copper wire
- transparent stator teeth
- Woven LED wires to display AC Phasing
- 3D Printed & Painted stator housing
Battery
- Sub-pack with 90% real parts
- Non-live cells
- Transparent polycarbonate casing
- Battery sub-pack cut-away view
Inverter
- Re-purposed lift inverter housing
- Green acrylic in place of proprietary PCB’s
Systems Demo – Final Assembly 
Stator with copper wire and laced LED strips 
Simplified Inverter with fake PCBs 
Systems Demo – Graphics Mock-up 
Systems Demo Electronics 
Sub-Pack with clear case 
Motor Detail View – Transparent Stator Teeth 
Sub-Pack Case Jig 
Unpainted Motor Parts 
Painted Motor Parts 
Heating up Sub-Pack polycarb in the vacuum former
Full Assembly
Motor Exploded View
Motor
Sub-Pack Case Jig (unfolded)
Sub-Pack Case Jig (folded)
Battery
Beta’s battery packs cannot be displayed in the building due to safety protocols, so we built models using retired parts and fake battery cells.
- 5 Demos built @ full scale
- 3D printed parts to accommodate fake cell sizing
- Laser cut acrylic lids
- Hand-drawn infographics
- 90% real parts
- Confidential elements omitted for external audience
Gen 4 Battery 
Gen 4 Battery 
Gen 5 Battery 
Gen 5 Battery 
Gen 5 Battery (50ft Drop Test) 
Certified Battery Pack 
Certified Battery Pack
Gen 1.5 Pusher Motor 
Gen 1 Pusher Motor 
Gen 1 Pusher Motor 
Gen 2 Pusher Motor 
Gen 2 Pusher Motor 
Gen 3 Pusher Motor 
Gen 3 Pusher Motor
Motor
3-phase AC Motors are essential to the operation of Beta’s all-electric aircraft. To simplify and progressively reveal the technology, the Gen 1.5 Pusher motor was outfitted with:
- Hand-held magnets for tangible magnetic force
- Magnetic film for “x-ray” vision of the rotor magnets
- Buttons for interactive phase switching
- Addressable LEDs for visual phase identification
- Hand-drawn infographics
The following generations included demo-specific infographics for storytelling and motor specs.
Manufacturing
Carbon fiber aircraft assembly is a new concept to many people. We made various hands-on demos to show people how they could contribute to Beta’s mission through careers in manufacturing.
- Real tools and processes
- Progressive disclosure of concepts
- Used for outreach and workforce development
- Hand-drawn infographics
- Laser cut tool organizers
Assembly demo 
Inspection Demo 
Carbon fiber 101 
Assembled wing section 
Inspection demo tools 
Assembly demo tools 
Making a CF piece for the CF 101 demo
Wind Tunnel – Party Mode 
Wind Tunnel – Party Mode 
Wind Tunnel 
Wind Tunnel – Party Mode
Wind Tunnel
A 1970’s wind tunnel from the University of Vermont. This originally used kerosene and incandescent lighting and was retrofitted with LEDs and glycol smoke to safely explain basic aerodynamics.
Adaptations include:
- Glycol fog machine
- Air filter
- Adjustable LED Lighting
- Re-sealed plumbing
- Safety Relay
- Hand-drawn info-graphics
Off-Site Install
Washington, DC
- 1x Charge Cube Demo
- 1x Gen 5 Battery Demo
- 1x Gen 3 Motor Demo
- 1x 3ft Alia A250 Diorama + Ground Support Equipment.
These installations continue to support mission-critical visits from the FAA and other government officials.
As team lead I coordinated:
- Flights
- Accommodation
- Demo transport (me and John in a U-Haul for 10hrs straight)
- Demo Install
- Fun bonus activities!
Unpacking the charge demo 
Installing… 
Installed!!