October 2021 - May 2022
Structures and Material Science Apprentice
My freshman year at Texas A&M, I joined SAE AERO Design as an apprentice. This was my first experience with a rigorous engineering design project team, and I developed significantly during this experience. We were tasked with designing and building an airplane to maximize a scoring equation. In May, we competed our plane and placed 4th out of ~20 teams worldwide.
STOL plane - mimics a fighter jet taking off an aircraft carrier
8 ft runway
4 ft wingspan
Maximize cruise speed
Maximize payload capacity
Motor limited to 450 W
As an apprentice, I started with very little experience with the engineering process or software used. My task was to learn and improve the plane as where possible. I noticed the jig design involved gluing plywood profiles to a base MDF board, which was tedious, didn't allow for easy adjustment, and single use. So, I designed a new jig system using T-slot aluminum and 3D printed parts, which could be adjusted and reused as desired. I also heavily participated in the manufacturing for our many iterations of the plane, which involved laser cutting, 3D printing, foam cutting, jig aligning, gluing, etc.
4th of 20 teams at SAE AERO East competition.Â
This was the first year that the Micro Class team was brought back to TAMU, so it was a satisfactory finish.
