A team of University of Alabama aerospace engineering majors will compete in the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Student Design/Build/Fly competition Friday through Sunday.
The aircraft contest, which will be held in Tucson, Ariz., requires teams to design, fabricate and demonstrate the flight capabilities of an unmanned, electric-powered, radio-controlled aircraft that best meets three missions.
“Mission one is empty flight,” Tyler Brooker, a senior majoring in aerospace engineering and team member, said. “You complete as many laps as you possibly can in a certain time limit. Mission two includes flying as many rockets as you are willing to in the internal load. Mission three involves external and internal loads. There are four or five separate rockets we have to use, different sizes and weights. We have to be able to keep the balance of the plane equal, so we’ll have an asymmetric loading on the wings.”
The top three winners will earn cash prizes up to $25,000. The first-place winner will receive an opportunity to present their design at an AIAA conference, and the team with the best report score will win a $100 prize from the Design Engineering Technical Committee.
The group has been preparing for the contest since late August, spending 30-40 hours a week designing and creating the plane.
“Last semester we spent all our time designing. Once we had a design finalized, we ordered all of our parts,” Brooker said. “We worked on building it the first couple months this semester, and we tested and improved it the last couple months.”
William Bowen, a senior majoring in aerospace engineering, said winning this competition could give next year’s UA team an advantage.
“Participating in this competition has given us the opportunity to apply the skills we have acquired over the last few years into physical practice,” Bowen said. “Winning the competition would give the team for next year a basis on the amount of time and quality work that is needed to be applied in order to be successful.”
Thomas Zelier, an associate professor and undergraduate program coordinator for the department of aerospace engineering and mechanics, is the advisor for UA Design/Build/Fly, and said getting a UA team into the competition is a recent phenomenon. In the past, they have had problems providing the funds needed for supplies and travel.
“Travel is the single most expensive line in the budgets since the competitions are alternate between Tucson and Wichita,” Zelier said. “Several years ago, we got a gift of $15,000 from Northrop-Grumman for the design lab that made a tremendous difference in developing basic capabilities in terms of tools.”
More recent teams have been able to compete because of contributions from Alabama Space Grant Consortium, SGA and some AEM department funds.
“I am happy to see improvement and something new and clever with each team,” Zelier said.
