Engineering students take 3rd, 16th in aerospace competition

For a weekend in California, 14 ISU students were real engineers.

“This is engineering,” said Leland Nicolai, Lockheed Martin fellow and an American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics fellow. “The difference between a scientist and an engineer is a scientist discovers that which exists and an engineer creates that which never was.”

Two ISU teams competed from Friday to Sunday in the Society of Automotive Engineers Aero Design West competition for the second year. The competition centered on designing, selling and flying a unique remote control airplane.

There were three parts to the competition: the mission, an oral presentation and a written design report.

During the mission, students were required to fly their plane in a 360-degree course. Points were awarded for each flight based on the amount of weight the plane carried. The teams were required to predict before flight how much weight their planes could carry and received points based on how close they were to their prediction.

The rest of the points were based on the oral presentation of the plane and the written design report.

Twelve freshman aerospace engineering students were part of the CyFly team. This is the first year the university has funded a freshman team.

CyFly entered the regular class in the competition. According to the Society of Automotive Engineers Web site, regular class is designed to be “more accessible to the fledgling team.” The CyFly team placed 16th overall in the competition.

The second team, MicroClones, consisted of two brothers: Dale and Peter Hodgell. Dale, senior in mechanical engineering, and Peter, junior in aerospace engineering, entered the micro class.

According to the Web site “micro class teams are required to make trades between two potentially conflicting requirements, carrying the highest payload fraction possible, while simultaneously pursuing the lowest empty weight possible.”

The MicroClones placed third overall and first in the written design report.

The competition gave students the chance to learn outside the classroom in a hands-on environment.

“The amount of knowledge I have acquired in the last few days, probably more than I have acquired all year about planes,” said Molly Sturgis, freshman in aerospace engineering.

Andy Meeker, research engineering manager for Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works, said he was really impressed with the freshman team’s plane design.

“I remember back when I was a freshman in college, and I don’t know if a group of us could have built something like that,” Meeker said.

The team’s plane was designed like a trainer or a simple airplane that beginners learn to fly when they start flying remote control planes, said John Brendel, freshman in aerospace engineering.

The plane was built out of spruce, balsa wood, plywood and plastic.

“We tried to keep it as simple as possible,” Brendel said.

Throughout the weekend CyFly ran into problem after problem.

“The freshman team consistently had issues,” said Dana Haugli, senior lecturer in aerospace engineering and adviser for both teams. “With any big team there will always be personality conflicts.”

There were communication issues and leadership issues, as well as problems with their plane.

At 4:30 p.m. Friday, however, they had to be ready — and they were. Seven of the team members presented their plane to the judges. The judges commented on how polished their presentation was, considering the number of people who were presenting.

On Saturday the team was set to fly its plane. It spent all morning making adjustments so the plane would actually fly. These adjustments were largely attributed to the team’s assigned pilots. None of the team members actually flew the plane — rather, two experienced remote control airplane pilots were assigned to fly the team’s plane.

“Our wing had warped just slightly on the trip down. So we unwarped our wing, we did some stuff with our center of gravity, we fixed our empennage [tail section of the plane]. It was a little shaky so we tied it down,” Sturgis said.

In the end, CyFly’s plane made five successful circuits. The maximum weight the plane carried was 14.9 pounds.

“I have this insane amount of pride right now,” Sturgis said. “A team of all freshmen, nobody really thought we would do anything or be somewhat of a success, and here we are having this success on the runway.”

The upper class, more experienced MicroClones team, showed what ISU’s engineering programs were capable of. The team of brothers worked seamlessly the whole weekend, despite having some difficulties flying their plane. The two often became an example for the freshman team to follow.

“Other than the challenge of achieving lift-off velocity, which is really an issue of having batteries that have the power, they haven’t really had issues. They’ve been at the top of their game all along,” Haugli said. “[The plane] is well designed and in my opinion it’s well built.”

Dale said Peter took the lead in designing based on a design he started last summer. They built a successful prototype before the final construction of the competition airplane.

“Our design came from previous experience and looking at historic designs for short takeoff,” Peter said.

The F-8 Crusader inspired their model.

The team started out strong, winning first place in the design report and third place in the oral presentation. However, flying the plane was a different story. On Saturday, the first day of flying, the team couldn’t get its plane off the ground. If the MicroClones had gotten the plane in the air during the first flight, it would have won first place overall, Haugli said. After modifications, the plane flew twice, though each flight was disqualified on a technicality.

The Teams

The CyFly team consisted of 12 freshman aerospace engineering students.

They were: John Brendel, Matt Carda, Ivan Chavira, Zach Hayes, Shaun Humes, Alex Lee, Josh Lyzhoft, James Nguyen, Graham Sawyer, Mike Smith, Molly Sturgis and Eric Truesdale.

The MicroClones team consisted of two brothers: Dale Hodgell, senior in mechanical engineering, and Peter Hodgell, junior in aerospace engineering.

Dana Haugli, senior lecturer of aerospace engineering, was the faculty adviser for both teams.