I promise arts & crafts are engineering too!
SAE Aero Design is an engineering challenge. How you approach that problem is up to you.
Learning from the expereince of previous teams, we decided that rapid, early prototyping was how we’d perform well at competition. Aerodynamic analysis is important, but as far as flying goes, you can’t beat testing.
I had experience with building r/c planes, and foamboard is a commonly used material. Once we did the basic analysis to determine our plane size, we made a first prototype.
This is our CAD model (in onshape) of our first test. We built it
We assembled the plane in a few afternoons using laser & hand-cut cut foamboard
I wouldn’t call the outcome of this one the best. We learned a few key things, though:
- Weight distribution could not be evalulated in the same way as a more traditional plane. Stable CG was further forward than expected.
- Our control surfaces were far too big
Our second model was much more refined
Based on the learnings from the first flights, we lightened the tail and moved the CG forward. We also used a bar to mount the motors to the front of the fuselage. Moving them further forward not only decreased our reliance on a rigid wing structure, but also increased the amount of blown lift over the wings, helping us generate more lift.
The maiden flight of our V2 foamy was more successful.
note: you want Micro Class Club > 2024-2025 Micro Class - club › Flight Tests and Data › V2 Foamy Maiden › Media › flight videos ALSO IT WAS 3.77 LB
off the ground in ~10 feet (talk about over-weight and scaling here)
This and subsequent tests were far more successful. We were even able to get some onboard video for debugging purposes. We found this helped us to….