Middle school-aged kids clustered around a machine at UAA’s new Engineering & Industry Building, peering at a tiny model of a plane perched inside a clear chamber. A mist unfurled from a wand held up to a screen on the side of the Hampden wind tunnel, and streamed smoothly around the plane as the kids’ instructor asked questions. “You want to try an even larger angle of attack?” UAA’s Dr. Jifeng Peng said, pressing buttons on a control pad of a state-of-the-art wind tunnel during last summer’s engineering academy course on wing aerodynamics. The miniature plane tilted to a steeper angle and the mist’s movement appeared choppy. “Now you can see the [mist], visualize the air flow, right?” “It’s going over,” a boy said. “It’s not going under, though,” said another student. “Can somebody tell me the difference between the air flow now and the air flow before?” Peng asked. “It’s going...