A first-year design experience based on SAE Aero Design contest to support ABET learning outcomes and engineering vocation in freshmen student

The a-k outcomes established by Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) for Engineering students in their self-assessment framework, should be reflected in the different subjects that taught to the students of the first two years of the various engineering programs. On the other hand, in those first semesters, the vocation of the students about the different Engineering is not very well defined. This experiment shows a proposal that links the results of ABET with an international student competition such as Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) Aero Design, to reinforce and guide the new students in their future choice of specialization in the School of Engineering. We also show the relationship between the challenges and problems in the SAE Aero Design competition for new students and ABET's a-k outcomes. We show the results obtained with nineteen students over three years. It is important to mention that none of the students involved in this experiment comes from Aeronautical Engineering (or similar to it).