Undergrad Senior project

This one is was not officially “recreational engineering”, but it was fun. My friends (CJ, Andy, Prem, Alex, Kyle, and Kelly) and I built an RC plane from the ground up for competition in the SAE AeroDesign West competition. The aircraft were judged on weight lifting capacity.

It was all of our first time doing something like this, and it flew! In retrospect, there are lots of things we would have designed differently, and that is how you know the learning is working!

I was responsible for the composite manufacturing, and although the fuselage was heavy (and indestructible), I think there were some nice light-weight components too. We had some water jet cut carbon panels for the wing spars, and braided carbon tubes around basla to reinforce parts of the spars.

I also made a disc brake system. Totally overkill.