This year there are a few teams from UC Davis, Team 313, the "MicroRaven" Team is the one I am working on with Ben "Hwkmn" and Jeremy.
The teams compete at the LockheedMartin Sponsored SAE Aero-Design West Competition in Texas with the basic task of designing an aircraft that can cary the highest payload relative to it's weight. On Friday night the team did their presentation of their design, and flew on saturday and sunday. The weight fraction method inputs the aircraft's all up weight to the additional payload it can carry, and gives a flight a score. The competition is comprised of three scores, Design Score, Presentation Score, and Flight score. After our first flight Team MicroRaven was in a comfortable first place in the Micro Class with a flight score of 88 points for the flight with 2 lbs of payload on our (less than) 12 oz airplane, today the MicroRaven flew with 2.6 lbs of steel on it's belly for a score of 95 points. These were at the top of the list of flight scores, the presentation and design scores were up there too. . .and now that the dust has settled and all (wait, only a couple) of the planes are back on the ground Team MicroRaven takes the victory!
The aircraft was constructed using carbon fiber rods of various sizes, carbon fiber thread and resin to join them, balsa and lite covering film built up wings and tail surfaces and powered by a small electric "outrunner" motor and Caslte Creations Speed controller, Apogee LiPoly batteries, and Hitec Feather Receiver.
Here is the minimalistic little heavy lifter in all her glory!
Flying wires are used to add some rigidity to the minimal fuselage structure.
Sure it's not a real feast for the eyes, but it's a hard working machine!!
top 3 teams in each class listed here:
http://www.fwthunderbirds.org/aero%20design%20west%2004.htmInfo here:
http://students.sae.org/competitions/aerodesign/west/Some pics, and a DVD of the events here:
http://www.teamrcpilot.com/S!
TX-EcoDragon
Black 1
TX-Squadron XO
