The UMass Aeronautics Team, an undergraduate-student competition team open to all departments in the College of Engineering, left a permanent mark on a prestigious international “design, fly, and build” competition in only the team’s second entry into such an event. 

As the team summarized its accomplishments on its LinkedIn page, “The UMass Aeronautics Team is proud to announce that we placed first in New England and 15th internationally (out of 110 teams) in the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics [AIAA] Design, Build, Fly International Competition in Wichita, Kansas. Huge shoutout to the 30 undergraduate students that all contributed significantly to the design, manufacturing, and testing of the aircraft.” 

The team’s website explains that “We’re a team of…undergraduate students who apply our classroom knowledge to real-world problems in the aviation, UAV [unmanned-aerial-vehicle], and VTOL [vertical-take-off-and-landing] industries. Our project provides hands-on aeronautics experience to UMass Amherst’s Mechanical and Industrial Engineering [MIE] Department and helps prepare students for these rapidly growing industries.”

The annual AIAA aeronautics event involves performing a series of ground and flight missions, which are then scored and compared against other universities worldwide.

According to the AIAA website, “This year’s flight objective was to design, build, and test a remotely operated, radio-controlled airplane for Urban Air Mobility. The airplane must be able to conduct a delivery flight, a medical-transport flight, and an urban-taxi flight. Teams also conducted a ground mission demonstrating how quickly they can change their aircraft configuration from delivery to medical transport to urban air taxi.”

As MIE undergraduate Jake Simon, one of the UMass team’s co-captains, explains, “We are most proud of the fact that all 30 students on the team, ranging from first year to seniors, had a direct and significant impact on the success of the team. All of the students have gained invaluable experience through the design process and can now use this as a steppingstone towards careers in the aviation/aerospace industry.”

The two-semester-long project affords career-launching skills for everyone on the team. “The UMass Aeronautics Team provided me with an invaluable opportunity to apply knowledge I learned in class to a real-world environment,” says MIE undergrad Alex Bagley, a member of the Research and Development Team, “and gave me a sense of accomplishment by being a member of a successful design team.”  

This year, the team used the engineering-design process to design, analyze, and optimize an aircraft using programs and software such as SOLIDWORKS, MATLAB, and ANSYS. By applying classroom knowledge to real-life practical challenges, the teamwork presented a unique opportunity for students to deepen their understanding of these software programs and utilize them at an advanced level.

After completing the design process, the team utilized rapid-prototyping techniques such as 3D-printing, laser cutting, and hot-wire cutting to create initial prototypes of the aircraft. Team members then constructed prototypes using lightweight, high-strength materials ranging from wood and composites, to cutting-edge, 3D-printing materials. Then the team tested and redesigned the aircraft multiple times before the competition to ensure optimal performance.

After this year’s success, where does the UMass team go from here? “We believe the only thing that separates us from the top-five teams [in the AIAA competition] is access to expert industry advisors and increased funding,” says Nate Ware, the head of the Electrical Sub Team. “Next year, that's where we want to be.” Ware is an undergraduate in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department.

Another team co-captain, MIE undergrad Brandon Lutz, concludes that “This year we spent a lot of time to develop as a team to create a really competitive program that’s not just competitive this year but has the trajectory to grow in following years.” 

Under the leadership of Department Head Sundar Krishnamurty, the MIE has supported the UMass Aeronautics Team with resources and travel funds to attend their national competition. As Krishnamurty says, “With generous gifts from our alums, the MIE department is also supporting multiple other student clubs (Supermileage, UMass Rocket, ASME Design, Minutemen Racing, Floating Wind Structure) towards our mission to offer students a vertically integrated, collaborative, experiential-learning experience.” 

This story was originally published by UMass Amherst College of Engineering.