AIAA Weekly Update #5: Construction Montage

Construction of the competition plane is well underway! The VersaLASER has been our workhorse for this build. The ribs and fuselage sections were created directly from drawings “printed” to this laser cutter. These cuts are extremely precise; we could cut parts out manually, but there would be slight differences between each due to human error.

sub24hr-fuselage
Assembly in 24 hours, or your money back!

The fuselage skeleton is complete, along with the tail. Both were assembled this weekend! All wing ribs have been cut out and are awaiting assembly. The wings will be held together mainly by carbon fiber strips, which have been marked for cutting. Unfortunately, machine shop’s band saw is down for maintenance (a rare event!) so the wings will have to wait until later in the week.

Engineers in their natural habitat
Engineers in their natural habitat

 

As always, if you are interested in building airplanes and airplane-building-related activities, stop by our weekly meetings on Mondays at 9 PM in 233 Mudd. Also head to the machine shop on the second floor of Mudd on Friday afternoons; we spend most of our build time there.

AIAA Weekly Update #4: Some Assembly Required

report Sound the bells; the report is complete! At a hilarious 54 pages in length, this document represents the culmination of our efforts so far this year. The report, graded by three separate judges, will be a major part of our contest score. It is also the compiled reference for our final design, and will guide us through constructing the competition plane according to the design choices we have made and the experimental results from our prototype and other tests.

taxi-test1The kit and prototype planes have provided valuable test fodder. We tested the prototype with different wheels, taxiing along the corrugated sheet that we will have to navigate during the competition.

Plane-testingOur final task is to construct and fly the competition plane! All of the parts have arrived and the design is complete. The new motor has been put through its paces on the testing rig, shown to the right.

As always, if you are interested in building airplanes and airplane-building-related activities, stop by our weekly meetings on Mondays at 9 PM in 233 Mudd. Also head to the machine shop on the second floor of Mudd on Friday afternoons; we spend most of our build time there.

AIAA Weekly Update #3: Virtual Reality

transit2
Simulator in transit across Columbia’s beautiful campus.
transit1
Low Library lit up in honor of
Columbia Engineering’s 150th!

Our Engineering Week demo was a great success! We showed off our flight simulator and a foam kit plane for a few hours on Monday night, in lieu of our regular meeting.

testing
Testing the prototype.

 

We have also completed construction of our prototype and begun the testing process. All that remains is the finish the report and then build our final design! As always, if you are interested in building airplanes and airplane-building-related activities, stop by our weekly meetings on Mondays at 9 PM in 233 Mudd.

AIAA Weekly Update #2: Shipping and Handling

We will be exhibiting our flight simulator for the ESC’s Engineering Week on Monday, 2/17 from 6-8 PM in the Lerner Hall “party space”. Stop by to get some virtual flight time in! In fact, we might even have the chance to get in some real flying time too, but that’s a surprise we’ll leave for those who come.

boxes
Ballasted blocks for cargo.

Work on the prototype plane is continuing. Many of the constituent parts and electronics are on their way; we are waiting on them to arrive so we can finish that plane! In the meantime, we are preparing our test equipment. We have created a rig for the motor to see how hard it can pull. We also manufactured two 1 lb blocks for cargo. In addition, we bought a corrugated sheet that matches the one our final plane will have to taxi on for the first mission of the competition. The goal is to test different wheel diameters to try and roll across the sheet without issues.

motor-rig
Motor testing rig.

We are also making progress on the all-important design report! On Friday, we will meet to finish and begin editing it. Finally, we are expecting to finish the redesign of our website soon, including bios of our members!

As always, if you are interested in building airplanes and airplane-building-related activities, stop by our weekly meetings at 9 PM in 233 Mudd.

AIAA Weekly Update #1: Maple Syrup

With three weeks left until the design report deadline, progress continues apace!

Gracefully loitering on the shop floor.
Gracefully loitering on the shop floor.

We recently completed our maple-leaf themed kit plane. The first flight will take place as soon as a suitable location is available. Video is soon to follow!

The kit plane has been a great chance to practice assembling a plane in preparation for our prototype and final design.

Speaking of which, construction of our prototype plane is also under way. We have completed work on the fuselage and will order our electronics this week. Assembly will be finished as soon as they arrive. Our flight simulator is complete as well. We eventually plan to use the simulator to test our radio-control equipment. For now, it is only controlled via keyboard.

Our next major task is to complete the design report. This will involve testing our completed builds and making changes to our final design that will be reflected in the report. Once those changes are finalized and the report is completed, our final build will begin ASAP.

As always, if you are interested in building airplanes and airplane-building-related activities, stop by our weekly meetings at 9 PM in 233 Mudd.

Tail assembly.
Tail assembly.

Fuselage design notes.
Fuselage design notes.

We have a blog!

Hello aviation and aerospace fans! The Columbia AIAA club now has a blog through which we can share all of our exciting updates, construction tips, and cool multimedia snapshots! Over the next few months we will be displaying the build process for our plane and decisions we make along the way. Stay tuned for more (and hopefully frequent!) updates.