SAE Aero Design East Competition 2008

Two teams of mechanical engineering seniors from Wright State University participated in the SAE Aero Design East Competition in Kennesaw, Georgia, over the third weekend in April. This international competition draws university teams from all over the United States, as well as Brazil, Venezuela, Puerto Rico, Canada, Poland and India. The Aero Design Competition challenges engineering students to conceive, design, model, fabricate and test a radio-controlled aircraft that can take off and land while carrying the maximum payload weight. This gives students the opportunity to apply the knowledge obtained in the classroom to a practical problem in system design. In the analysis of their aircraft, numerous trade-off studies were completed in order to optimize the design. In addition to the flight portion of the competition, the students put their professional communication skills to work by submitting a formal design report and by giving a ten-minute presentation to a group of four highly qualified judges from the aerospace industry. The WSU micro class team consisted of eight students from the Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering, and their team name was Dark Wing Ducks. The micro class competition required that the team develop an aircraft that can fit into a box of a given size, which can be assembled in less than three minutes, which was demonstrated during the presentation portion of the contest. The regular class team (team name ITSEZ), which had seven students from the Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering, was required to use a 60-size glow engine, and the aircraft size was limited to 175 linear inches. In other words, the wingspan plus the nose-to-tail length plus the maximum height above the ground had to be less than 175 inches. The WSU micro class team won the first place award for the Best Design. This award is given to the team that has the highest combined score for the design report and the presentation. The micro class team came in eighth place out of twelve in the overall competition, and the regular class team placed tenth out of thirty-nine teams.

Micro Class Videos:

mic0801.avi (41.6 MB)	mic0802.avi (42.4 MB)	mic0803.avi (22.6 MB)	mic0804.avi (26.1 MB)	mic0805.avi (33.9 MB)
mic0806.avi (61.3 MB)	mic0807.avi (62.4 MB)	mic0808.avi (45.6 MB)	mic0809.avi (31.9 MB)	mic0810.avi (37.9 MB)
mic08011.avi (23.5 MB)	mic08012.avi (44.5 MB)	mic08013.avi (30.9 MB)	mic08014.avi (82.2 MB)

Regular Class Videos:

reg0801.avi (52.0 MB)	reg0802.avi (55.8 MB)	reg0803.avi (107.9 MB)	reg0804.avi (57.8 MB)	reg0805.avi (45.1 MB)
reg0806.avi (18.3 MB)	reg0807.avi (53.2 MB)	reg0808.avi (88.4 MB)	reg0809.avi (60.4 MB)	reg0810.avi (49.5 MB)
reg0811.avi (19.8 MB)	reg0812.avi (28.3 MB)	reg0813.avi (76.3 MB)

Here are some videos for my friends that I get to see and talk to at the competition:

Terry at Kansas State University (307 MB)

Lisa at the College of New Jersey (155 MB)

Santiago at the University of Cincinnati (179 MB)

Lou at Lafayette College (85 MB)

Aaron at the University of Dayton (139 MB)

Tim at Cedarville University (26.5 MB)

Jed at Ohio Northern University (69.7 MB)

This video shows a team from RCVE (27.3 MB), which is a university in India. Their excitement was inspiring!

This video shows the University of Akron (13.8 MB) airplane, which won the micro class. Very nice!

This video shows the California State University/Long Beach (36.5 MB) airplane, which was a neat delta wing.

Everyone wants to see a crash! (82 MB)