Most days, in a small lab located in the basement of the B Annex Building on Bishop Street, you’ll find a few members of the SAE Concordia AeroDesign team hard at work building radio-controlled (RC) aircraft.
Currently, the group of around 20 undergraduate and graduate students is preparing for SAE Aero Design West in Fort Worth, Texas, in March, where they'll face off against teams from top universities around the world. Concordia’s team has an impressive track record, with two podium finishes at the 2015 SAE Aero Design East competition.
Matt Gruber, a mechanical engineering student in his final year, is the AeroDesign coordinator for SAE Concordia. Kyle Petrunik is president as well as the lead aircraft designer, spearheading this year’s design effort.
The experiential-learning balancing act
What is the objective of your project?
Matt Gruber: To design, engineer and manufacture a remote-controlled fixed-wing aircraft to meet the specifications of the competition rules.
This year, the rule set requires us to design an airplane that simulates a passenger airline, with tennis balls being the passengers. Teams that can optimize their aircraft to lift the most amount of passengers and cargo receive more points during the five flight rounds.
Kyle Petrunik: The planes are usually built out of aluminium, wood and plastic, and they're powered either by electric motors or combustion engines.
What are some of the key challenges you face in your work?
KP: Designing aircraft takes years of experience, knowledge and dedication. All of us are full-time students, so we have to balance the workload of school and the knowledge we need to design a fully functional aircraft within a year. Time management becomes the challenge — how best to learn the things you need to learn and stay on top of your studies.
What person, experience or moment in time first inspired you to get involved in this work?
MG: I used to be uncomfortable flying until after my first Co-op engineering internship at Bombardier. I was lucky to have a great boss, an interesting job in the Loads Department, and passionate and friendly co-workers.
Right after that internship, I got on a 737 aircraft to visit a friend in Wyoming. After gaining experience with people who design and build planes — and after learning a bit about how they work — my discomfort while flying was replaced with relaxed joy as we navigated through the massive Rockies.
When I got back to school, I had a class in the machine shop, where we first get hands-on building experience. Michael Rembacz, who runs the Engineering Design and Manufacturing Lab (EDML) machine shop, told me about SAE. He arranged a meeting and Kyle Petrunik showed me around.
Here was a chance to get direct experience with a fun team, right on campus, who actually know how to build a working RC aircraft from the ground up. I could apply the things I learned during my internship to help design the plane that first year and fit as much as I could in my brain about what makes an aircraft come together and fly.