Engineering Challenges: Review of Flight, CO2, and Obama's Plan

This report provides a review of three significant engineering challenges. The first challenge discussed is the Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) Flight and Payload Challenge, which focuses on improving flight time and payload capacity through design trade-offs. The second challenge involves President Obama's 2015 meeting with leaders in STEM fields, where over 120 engineering schools pledged to educate students on societal challenges, including sustainable energy and cybersecurity. The third challenge is the XPrize CO2 emissions project, which aims to develop innovative technologies for converting CO2 emissions into useful products, thus mitigating climate change. The report highlights the objectives, stakeholders, and potential impacts of each challenge, providing a comprehensive overview of current engineering endeavors.

Running head: REVIEWING OF CHALLENGES
Reviewing of challenges
Name of the student
Name of the University
Author note

1REVIEWING OF CHALLENGES
1) Flight challenge
The flight challenge involves people to join the program and win a prize. This will
require people to develop an innovative concept using their own expertise and hardware
solutions such that a great conceptual prototype is maintained ("The Unmanned Aerial Systems
Flight And Payload Challenge | Challenge.Gov"). The results of this competition will lead to the
betterment of the public society. The stakeholders associated will also be benefited. The name of
the challenge is UAS (Unmanned Aerial Systems) Flight and Payload Challenge.
The main challenge to the competition is the monitoring of the payload versus flight
time. The Vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) UAS can provide various characteristics for
addressing in any kind of missions. However, the main problem associated is that the flight time
is very limited. For addressing the requirement of efficiency in the flight challenge the payload
capacity, energy source and flight time are linked by using design trade-offs. This helps in
increasing the flexibility and efficiency ("The Unmanned Aerial Systems Flight And Payload
Challenge | Challenge.Gov"). The main objectives of this type of program are the conduction of
research to get the knowledge of getting the carrier in air for a long amount of time. The
advancement of UAS research will help search and rescue operations support payloads for
wireless communications or other life-saving goods to save lives.
Another barrier to this program is that there is no official post regarding the main
contents of the program. As a result, there is no such process which will allow the contestants to
know how they are going to perform their. The NIST Public Safety Communications Research
Program is developing this program in three stages ("The Unmanned Aerial Systems Flight And

2REVIEWING OF CHALLENGES
Payload Challenge | Challenge.Gov"). In addition, the total prize money involved is $432,000
(includes travel, prototype & cash prizes) which is given for the top ten designs.
https://www.challenge.gov/challenge/the-unmanned-aerial-systems-flight-and-payload-
challenge/
2) Commitment to President Obama
In the year 2015, the president of United States, Barack Obama is meeting the leaders of
science, technology, engineering, and math including National Academy of Engineering
President C. D. Mote Jr. in the White House ("Grand Challenges - Commitment To President
Obama: 20,000 GRAND CHALLENGE ENGINEERS In A Decade Schools Will Specially
Prepare New Generation To Take On Societal Aspirations"). The main objectives of this meeting
is that more than 120 engineering schools in the United States have decided to educate the
students regarding all the challenges that the society faces in the 21st century.
The main challenges identified are that engineering can be counted as a better aspect than
medicines and the students need to follow these career options as well. Along with this, another
challenge is to make the price of solar energy similar to the process of coal such that the cost of it
can be economically considered. The last challenges involved in this meeting involve application
of innovative technologies such that various options of the cyberspace can be secured ("Grand
Challenges - Commitment To President Obama: 20,000 GRAND CHALLENGE ENGINEERS
In A Decade Schools Will Specially Prepare New Generation To Take On Societal
Aspirations"). These are the challenges that have been identified in the White House Strategy for
American Innovation, the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) Grand Challenges for
Engineering, and the United Nations Millennium Development Goals.

3REVIEWING OF CHALLENGES
Due to all these innovations, the schools in engineering which was joined in the meeting
has decided to sign a pledge such that they will be responsible for training and educating 20
students each year who will excel in their services for engineering. They will also be responsible
in solving large scale problems in the society ("Grand Challenges - Commitment To President
Obama: 20,000 GRAND CHALLENGE ENGINEERS In A Decade Schools Will Specially
Prepare New Generation To Take On Societal Aspirations"). According to the discussions of the
meeting, they have also pledged to train more than 20,000 engineering graduates in the following
decade that will be recognized as “Grand Challenge Engineers”.
http://www.engineeringchallenges.org/14373/15549/15785.aspx
3) XPrize CO2 emissions
During the age of innovation, the whole prospect of life is driven by the consumption of
energy. The energy from this comes from fossil fuels like coal, oil and natural gas which is
responsible for the increasing amount of carbon dioxide emissions. This is the main factor for
changing the intensity of climate ("Overview"). Along with this, it is also responsible for global
warming across the world. The major objectives of this challenge involve presenting a portfolio
which includes various solutions for addressing the requirements.
The project $20M NRG COSIA Carbon XPRIZE will inform the world about the
innovative technologies that will be used for the development of products made from converting
from CO2. These technologies have the potential to transform how the world approaches
CO2 mitigation, and reduce the cost of managing CO2 ("Overview"). The competition will have
two different stages. The first stage will involve testing of technologies as a coal power plant and
the other stage involving testing at a natural gas power plant.

4REVIEWING OF CHALLENGES
The project XPrize helps to inspire people around the world such that a technological
innovation can be developed which will help in changing the climate. The prize of this
development will involve a conversion of the carbon dioxide emissions under real-time
monitoring. This will also considered to be a prize to the society as well as the whole world will
be benefitted from this ("Overview"). This will also help in identification of the various
pathways used in carbon dioxide conversion and also prove that these can be adopted in
industrial facilities and power plants.
Lastly, the impact of the prize from this project will go far from the critical demonstration
obtained by the innovative technologies, inspiring of transformations, enabling of new markets
along the existing ones and empowering the common people to be a part of the project such that
one of the greatest challenges of the world is solved.
https://carbon.xprize.org/about/overview

5REVIEWING OF CHALLENGES
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"Overview." NRG COSIA Carbon XPRIZE. N.p., 2018. Web. 18 Jan. 2018.
"The Unmanned Aerial Systems Flight And Payload Challenge |
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