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A team of 11 mechanical engineering majors competed at the AERO Design East competition held May 4-6 in Forth Worth, Texas.
The AERO Design East contest challenges students to conceive, design, fabricate, and test a fully functional radio-controlled aircraft that can take off and land while carrying a maximum payload. The yearlong preparations for the competition serve as the student’s senior capstone project, which allows seniors to apply their classroom knowledge on a practical level. This year’s team was dubbed “Wingmen + 1.”
The competition is broken into three parts. The first is a written design report on the aircraft that is limited to 30 pages and must be done according to the rules and regulations of the competition. The second part is an oral presentation, where team members put forth their design report. Professional aerospace engineers from Martin Marietta Corp. evaluated the designs. The last component is actually flying the aircraft.
Although the team was in sixth place out of 51 international colleges and universities after the academic portion of the competition, a landing gear malfunction caused a crash and a final placement of 28th overall.
“I was very pleased with this year’s results,” project manger Bryan Shive ’07 (Bethlehem, Pa.) says. “The academic portion of the competition indicated that Lafayette is truly superior to other schools in the country and the world. The design and analysis performed throughout the year resulted in an aerodynamic, structurally sound aircraft.”
According to Shive,the team pushed on despite the crash and made the necessary repairs. The team was able to fly again on the second day of competition and placed instead of being disqualified.
“The team came together to develop a solution to the problem and successfully repaired the plane,” says Shive. “Although our final placing does not indicate how well we performed in the competition, this year’s team viewed the overall experience as a success.”
Shive says he took away a great deal of real world experience from the project that will help him long after he graduates.
“This project has helped me develop interpersonal skills which will be valuable throughout my professional life,” says Shive, who will work for Air Products and Chemicals after graduation. “I could not have asked for a better group of individuals to share this experience with.”
This year’s team included Tito Anyanwu ’07 (Brooklyn, N.Y.), Jill Bisplinghoff ’07 (Rye, N.H.), Alex Chatfield ’07 (Lebanon, N.J.), Marquis Scholar Tim Creelman ’07 (Philadelphia, Pa.), Aaron Hilber ’07 (Appleton, Wis.), Mike Leff ’07 (Bedford, N.Y.), Steve Music ’07 (San Jose, Costa Rica), Mateen Poonawala ’07 (Karachi, Pakistan), who is also a mathematics-economics major, Daniel Sharp ’07 (Monroe, N.Y.), and Andrew Zarenski ’07 (Rocky Hill, Conn.). Louis Hayden, visiting part-time professor of mechanical engineering, was the team’s adviser.