June 28, 2011
If you build it, it will fly - or so hoped the two UT teams headed for this year's Cessna Aircraft Company/Raytheon Missile Systems Student Design/Build/Fly Competition in Tucson, Arizona. Of the approximately 40 students who worked on the planes for Team TX-11 and Team Steel N Balls this year, 31 traveled April 15-17 to the annual competition, where they competed against 80 other teams from across the world.
And indeed, their planes flew. Both teams completed the three missions of the competition: Team TX-11 placed 7th overall after finishing all three flights before noon on Saturday—a first at the competition—and Team Steel N Balls came through on the last day after a couple setbacks, moving from 30th place to 15th place in a ten-minute span at the eleventh hour.
"They had airplanes that were well-built and well-designed, but they just weren't pushing the limits as much as some of the teams of previous years did," said Mark Maughmer, the Design/Build/Fly staff advisor. But it all came together at the competition. "There were no mistakes made at all," he said. "They came prepared and did what they were supposed to do."
The Design/Build/Fly competition includes three missions that change each year according to that year's theme. This year's theme, "Soldier Portable UAV," meant that the planes had to fit in a commercially available suitcase that meets airline carry-on requirements. The missions included "Dash to Critical Target," where the airplane had to fly as many laps as it could without a payload in 4 minutes; "Ammo Re-Supply," where the airplane had to fly 3 laps with a steel bar payload; and "Medical Re-Supply," where the airplane had to carry as many golf balls as possible and complete 3 laps. In each mission, the airplane had to be brought to the flight line in a carry-on suitcase, removed by a single crew member and prepared for flight within five minutes.
"The biggest challenge has been the weight requirement because the score is so dependent on weight," said junior Wiley Mosley, the team lead for TX-11. "If our plane crashes, we will have to rebuild it almost from scratch because if the plane is light, then it is very fragile. If it crashes, it will need many repairs."
Fortunately, TX-11's plane never crashed, but Team Steel N Balls was not so lucky. A couple crashes required them to almost completely rebuild the plane.
"They were not quite as prepared as the other team, but they worked hard and they rebuilt the plane three times," Maughmer said. "It was really cool seeing them all work together. They became a team that was a well-oiled machine by the end of the competition."
Steel N Balls report lead Sally McMenamin, a senior, said the team had a hard time finalizing their concept before the competition. "We were torn between a very small plane and a moderate size plane and had trouble confirming which way our analysis pointed," she said. "I have learned that if you are making an argument for a design, then you have analytical data to back it up. I also learned that an aircraft is still rebuildable after a crash if everyone works together."
The DBF competition provides students with a unique opportunity to learn where their strengths are while applying the skills they learn in the classroom.
"It's cool because each student can work on what they want to improve upon, and a lot of them are finding out what they're good at and what they enjoy doing," Maughmer said. "They get to try different things as they design and build an airplane from the ground up like they do in real life."
It's not just technical skills that students gain by working on DBF teams.
"It's important that the team communicates, which they found out several times," Maughmer said. "They also found out that testing their product is very important. You can't just put it on paper and expect it to work."
Mosley, like many of the other students, was especially looking forward to seeing the variety of designs by other teams at the competition.
"The best part was seeing all the different teams from around the world and their planes," he said. "DBF is about thinking on your toes and outside the box. The teams with the most extreme designs usually win, and I learned that there are many more ways to push the limits when designing a plane."
Perhaps the most important lesson students learned is a key concept in any engineering field, articulated best by freshman Charles Zappala, a structures team member of TX-11.
"I learned how to work with different lab materials and how to manage deadlines," he said. "And account for anything and everything."
