The Department of Aeronautical and Opto-Mechatronic Engineering at Vanung University cultivates talents of aircraft maintenance and professionals of aviation composite materials. Recently, the Department received NT$ 17,000,000 subsidies from the Ministry of Education’s Optimized Technological and Vocational Practice Project to build an advanced aviation composite material production, inspection and repair practice field. This is the only practice field for aviation composite repair and non-destructive inspection that uses aviation standard equipment and maintenance manuals in Taiwan. Under the recognition of the Ministry of Education and the aviation industry, Vanung University will become the cradle of cultivating composite materials professionals across the country.

The only aviation composite manufacturing and maintenance laboratory in Taiwan that uses aviation standard equipment and maintenance manuals. President of VNU Dr. Zhuang (second from right) and students at the Department of Aeronautical and Opto-Mechatronic Engineering.
In June 2020, the successful trial flight of Brave Eagle, the higher education aircraft made in Taiwan, demonstrated the government's determination to support the nation’s aerospace industry and also marked a new milestone for having indigenous jets made by domestic aerospace industry. The use of a large number of composite materials for the fuselage of the Brave Eagle higher education aircraft is one of the important highlights of future fighter planes. The use of composite materials in the aerospace field has become an industry trend. Dr. Zhuang, the President of Vanung University, which is the closest university of science and technology to Taoyuan International Airport in Taiwan, has taken the lead. A few years ago, he had invested heavily in the development of the Department of Aeronautical and Opto-Mechatronic Engineering at VNU, not only training aircraft maintenance talents, but also aviation composite materials production and maintenance talents.

The Department of Aeronautical and Opto-Mechatronic Engineering has a hangar for parking the cockpit of the Boeing 737-200 passenger plane and various aero engines.
The Department of Aeronautical and Opto-Mechatronic Engineering has a hangar for aircraft repair and maintenance. The total floor area of the hangar is about 500 square meters. It parks the cockpit and cabin of Boeing 737-200 passenger aircraft. It also has a variety of helicopters, fixed-wing aircrafts and aero engines, which are fully used for aircraft maintenance practice teaching. The Department of Aeronautical and Opto-Mechatronic Engineering employs a number of professional teachers with many years of experience in aircraft repair and maintenance, including Mr. Minglin Mo, the former director of TransAsia Airline’s Composite Repair Service, and Mr. Shanyuan Wang, the former director of Far Eastern Air Transport’s non-destructive inspection service. Mr. Mo has dozens of Airbus composite repair certifications, and is also a composite repair course trainer for GMI AERO, France, while Mr. Wang is certified in non-destructive testing level 2. Both practitioners would like to pass on their more than 20 years of practical experience to students in order to achieve the teaching characteristics of "learning by doing, doing by learning" at VNU.

The Department of Aeronautical and Opto-Mechatronic Engineering cultivates professional technical talents in aircraft maintenance and composite repairs. President Zhuang (middle) affirmed the students' learning attitude in the hangar.
The Department of Aeronautical and Opto-Mechatronic Engineering actively cooperates with the industry, and cooperates with the Plastics Industry Development Center (PIDC) to set up a composite material talent cultivation course in order to guide students to obtain the "Primary Composite Material Engineer Certification" from PIDC. In addition, the teachers lead the students to accept customized orders from the industry for the repair and development of composite parts in order to move towards sustainable management of the practical field. The Department of Aeronautical and Opto-Mechatronic Engineering attaches great importance to practical teaching, and helps students not only enter the aviation industry, but also shine in related industries and create their own bright future.
Students from the Department of Aeronautical and Opto-Mechatronic Engineering participated in the "2020 National English Readers Theater Competition" and won the second place in the Group Award and the second place in the Individual Award for Best Oral Skills. This competition is sponsored by the Department of Applied Foreign Languages and Language Center of Longhua University of Science and Technology. Through script reading and performance, the interest in reading and the ability of oral expression are enhanced. The awards are divided into the top 3 of the Group Award and the top 3 of the Individual Award (best oral skill award). Contestants from Vanung University selected the play "The Wolf and the Seven Little Kids" from the readers' theater scripts provided by the organizer to participate in the competition. A total of 42 contestants from various universities competed to perform different scripts.
Enyu Lu, a student from the Department of Aeronautical and Opto-Mechatronic Engineering won the second place in the "Personal Award for Best Oral Skills" in this competition. He graduated from the Aircraft Maintenance Department of Kaohsiung Dayong High School. Enyu, who is still a freshman, said that he has never participated in any national English competition before, and he has never tried to perform a ruthless character like the wolf in English. During the practice time, he kept putting himself in the evil and cunning mood of this character. In the process, as the plot continued to change, his voice expressions also had to change. He failed to produce the desired effect at the beginning. However, through the continuous guidance of Ms. Yu-hui Tsai from the school’s English Language Center, he achieved a breakthrough. He never thought that he would have won the Personal Best Oral Skills Award. With this experience, he said, “I hope that in the future, I can greatly improve my English listening, speaking, reading, writing and communication skills by participating in more national English competitions.”
Ms. Yu-Hui Tsai from the English Language Center of Vanung University patiently trained the participating English contestants every day before the competition. Enyu Lu was one of the talents she selected on the day of freshmen orientation in the Department of Aeronautical and Opto-Mechatronic Engineering. She said that the contestants spent a lot of time and effort every day to practice lines, strengthen their pronunciation, intonation, and voice expression. Also, they must cultivate a team understanding with other teammates in a short period of time. Although after registering for the competition, there was only less than two weeks to train, the diligent team had exerted the greatest explosive momentum within a limited period of time, and won the second place in the team competition and the individual award respectively. “Great achievement, I am deeply gratified,” said Ms. Tsai.
Dr. Ligen Hsu, director of the Department of Aeronautical and Opto-Mechatronic Engineering, said that in addition to cultivating engineering professionals in the areas of aircraft maintenance and aviation composite materials, the department has always spared no effort in cultivating students' English ability. After all, a high level of English in the aviation industry will lead to a higher-paying position. Looking back the records of the student achievement awards since the establishment of the department in 2015, under the hard work and guidance of Ms. Yu-Hui Tsai, the number of winners in various national English competitions from this department has reached more than 24 people, and many of them are among the top three national awards. Such English competition results are not easy for students in any department of engineering!
The president of Vanung University, Dr. Chang Chuang said that the school attaches great importance to English teaching and international learning to enhance students’ international vision and international mobility. Vanung University adheres to the student-oriented teaching philosophy of "appropriate talents." With good grades and strong English proficiency, students can get full scholarships to go to the United States as exchange students, and do overseas internships in their senior year. Dr. Chuang congratulated the students for winning the second place in both the individual award and the group award in the National English Readers Theater Competition. The first-class university will surely create first-class students!
The following is the link to the award-winning live performance in the National Readers Theater Competition:
https://youtu.be/5fwYZQ1b57w
English Introduction to Vanung University (VNU)
English Introduction to Department of Aeronautical and Opto-Mechatronic Engineering at VNU