Members of the Engineering Aero Heavy Lift Group are competing April 5 to 7 at an international aero design competition.
Some engineering challenges are trickier than others. Engineering students competing in an aeronautics challenge in the U.S. chose the latter.
They've designed and built a remote-control airplane that has to drop a payload of supplies into a 100-foot-diameter drop zone. Then, their airplane has to release a second aircraft riding piggy-back on it. This second airplane, carrying a payload of "passengers" needs to glide to a "hard landing" in the same drop zone.
Sensors in the glider will measure the impact of the landing.
"Really, we are going to be crashing it as gently as possible," says team member Jaydon Vanselow. "If it careens into the ground, you've killed your passengers and you get no points."
The competition is meant to simulate a Mars landing, with the remote-controlled plane serving as a mother ship that drops supplies then delivers passengers aboard a second ship safely to the landing zone. The challenge comes with a much higher degree of difficulty than the team has faced in the past.
"There are a lot more moving parts-it's a systems design challenge where you have to integrate multiple systems," adds team member Ryley McConkey, who is in his final year of the mechanical engineering program.
The students say taking part in projects like this gives them hands-on experiential learning opportunities to apply lessons they've learned in the classroom. At last year's competition, the team was unexpectedly confronted with major design challenges.
"We spent a long night problem solving and evaluating what we could do, between abandoning the competition-which we weren't going to do-and changing our entire plan. Having to make these decisions where the integrity of the plane is on the line takes thoughtful evaluation and counter-arguments. It isn't something we get to experience in class," said Vanselow.
"That's when you find out what you really know," added team member Mason James. "Do you understand this thing well enough to change it and fix things at the last minute?"
The team is competing in the SAE Aero Design competition running April 5 to 7 in Van Nuys, California. Follow the group on Instagram and Facebook.