Discover how Mara Sergienko’s interests evolved from motorsport to space engineering through hands-on projects, design challenges and opportunities beyond the classroom at Imperial Aeronautics.
During my final years of school, there was one thing I was certain about: I wanted to study engineering. What kind of engineering, however, remained a deep mystery. I had grown up assembling model trains and other construction sets alongside my family of engineers, so building things and understanding how they worked had always appealed to me.
In my preliminary year, I completed a research project exploring why the Ford GT40 Mk II won the 1966 24 Hours of Le Mans. This sparked an interest in motorsport and initially made me consider automotive engineering. Soon afterwards, however, I attended several talks about space exploration and became equally fascinated by aerospace engineering, which left me with plenty of options but no easier decision.
What particularly attracted me to Imperial was the flexibility to discover what I enjoyed during the degree itself. In first year, we explored both automotive and aeronautical engineering, from dismantling and rebuilding an RC car to designing a vehicle around a set of requirements. I later joined the Formula Student team and confirmed that I still loved automotive engineering, but the opportunity to transfer onto the Aeronautics with Spacecraft Engineering pathway ultimately shifted my focus towards aerospace and the space industry.
Wind turbine project
The first-year wind turbine project was probably the most enjoyable end-of-year project I completed across the first three years of the degree. It was not just about learning the theory: we were able to design, build and test something ourselves – even if assembling the turbine occasionally felt like working with a rather advanced construction set. We used laser cutters and 3D printers, selected suitable materials and made design decisions while trying to maximise power output and minimise cost.
I worked in a group of six and completed the aerodynamic analysis alongside one other team member. After selecting a suitable aerofoil, we applied the principles covered during the year to calculate the chord length and twist distribution along the blade and develop its overall geometry. We also used Blade Element Momentum theory and Computational Fluid Dynamics to predict how the turbine would perform.
At that stage of the degree, engineering decisions could sometimes feel like educated guesses supported by equations – or, less formally, based slightly on “vibes.” Seeing the final turbine perform as predicted was therefore extremely rewarding, especially when it self-started at 10 m/s and, most importantly, did not break in the wind tunnel.
Duocopter project
The second-year duocopter project gave us considerably more freedom than the first-year wind turbine project. Our task was to develop a two-rotor aircraft that could survive testing and follow a prescribed vertical path in one degree of freedom – although achieving that was rather less simple than the brief made it sound.
Our team of six divided into two subgroups: one developed the control system, while the other designed the duocopter’s structure. I worked on the structural side, completing FEA analysis, applying the structural calculations we had learned during the year and using several software tools and theoretical methods introduced from wider reading. These decisions, calculations and results were then brought together in a technical report.
Compared with the wind turbine, the project involved more CAD and simulation work but less hands-on manufacturing, as the entire structure was 3D printed. The final performance depended heavily on the control system, but I was still particularly pleased that our structure survived every test. Structural survival may not have earned many additional marks but watching the duocopter complete its trials without disassembling itself was rewarding enough.
IC Electric Propulsion Society
Although the Imperial College Electric Propulsion Society has existed for some time, its Hall thruster project is a new addition, launched towards the end of this academic year. The aim is ambitious: to design, manufacture and test a functioning Hall thruster entirely as a student team.
Because the project is still relatively small – particularly compared with societies such as Formula Student – each member has the opportunity to contribute more and take on considerable responsibility. I even became a team lead, building on knowledge from the Aeronautics with Spacecraft Engineering programme and the Spacecraft Propulsion module. However, there is limited academic guidance, so we must independently research unfamiliar design details, interpret journal articles and solve problems together.
After investigating methods for estimating the thruster’s channel dimensions, I began designing and developing the hollow cathode, while another member of my team focused on the PFBN. One challenge is that published research is often highly theoretical, while some papers omit practical details such as how the cathode dimensions were determined.
The next stage will involve manufacturing each subsystem, assembling the complete thruster and eventually testing it inside a vacuum chamber.