DBF 2020

As a former member of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), I participated in the 2020 Design Build Fly (DBF) competition in which contestants were required to build a remote-controlled plane within certain specifications given. I was a part of the aerodynamics team at the University of Nevada Las Vegas' branch of AIAA and helped with the creation of the plane's wings. Here is a brief look at my work on the project.

Prototype of our RC plane for the DBF 2020 Competition

This is one of the early prototypes for our RC plane. The body is composed of a styrofoam/ cardboard hybrid which was molded to fit the shape of the final draft of the designs. UNLV ended up in 3rd place out of over a hundred contestants worldwide.

Modeling and testing a Clark Y airfoil for the plane using the CAD software Solidworks

Through our testing is was determined that the Clark Y airfoil shape was the most efficient airfoil for our plane. We then created the airfoil in the CAD software Solidworks and more tests were conducted.

Testing various airfoil qualities against each other using MATLAB.

Using the programming software MATLAB, various airfoil properties were tested against each other such drag coefficient and lift coefficient in order to determine which airfoil type was most efficient.