The Story

One of my goals as Stanford Flight Club’s president was to bring back Design, Build, Fly, the annual collegiate aerospace engineering competition. Through 6 months of intense engineering, we scored 21st out of 100 teams, and learned a lot of lessons along the way.

My Contributions

Wing Manufacturing Improvements

• Developed a method to create fast, cheap foamboard wings using balsa spars to mold the shape and laser-cut incisions into the foamboard.
• Enabled rapid testing of various airfoils.
• Used in the first prototype, validating wing shape for future designs.

Wing Construction Methods

• Tested a variety of methods for building wings out of balsa wood.
• Reduced assembly time by nearly half by creating jigs for spar alignment and improving wood-forming techniques.
• Explored ways to incorporate lightweight 3D-printed parts into the wing.

Servo Mounting

• Developed a technique to make servos flush with the wing airfoil, reducing drag.
• Created jigs to place airfoils into a CNC mill, enabling precise pockets for servos while maintaining wing strength.