DJS Skylark 2017-18
Dwarkadas J Sanghvi College of Engineering - Second Year Team Project
DJS Skylark is the official Aero Design team of Dwarkadas J. Sanghvi College of Engineering. The team consists of 30 like-minded aero enthusiasts with varying expertise who design, analyze and fabricate RC Airplanes for the SAE Aero Design Competition.
Competition Brief
SAE Aero Design is a collegiate competition hosted by SAE and Lockheed Martin. It is a three-day competition held annually in USA, with 75 teams from leading universities from around the world, including the United States, Canada, India, Mexico, China, Brazil, and Poland, showcase their planes with the help of a Design Report and a Technical Presentation, and then test fly their designs on a runway.
University students are given the opportunity to experience the real-life day-to-day operations of Lockheed Martin through the competition, and they must find their own ways to source material, conduct tests, manufacture their aircrafts, raise funds, and transport the plane to the competition site in the United States.
Competition categories
Regular Class
Mimicking the requirements of a commercial aircraft, the objective was to maximize the number of passengers (represented by tennis balls) that are to be lifted and their luggage (represented by weight plates) and thus generating the maximum revenue by carrying maximum payload.
Micro Class
The goal of the Micro Class is to design a compact aircraft that can carry the highest payload (PVC pipes) with respect to its own weight. It must also fit in a box and be assembled in under 2 minutes.
Our process
Manufactured and assembled Regular Class frame
The team inaugurating the 2017-18 planes and the annual Aeromodelling workshop
Disassembled planes ready to be shipped to the USA
Design Process
The team comprised 30 students, which was divided into groups for Micro class and Regular class. We were segregated into avionics, structural, aerodynamics, and marketing departments. Each department performed respective tasks of designing, manufacturing, and testing.
In July, we began work on improving the designs from past years. Our plan was built around monthly design, testing, and optimization cycles that worked around our exam schedule and an annual workshop. The year began with the team's second-year members being recruited and being taught about the team, as well as various aerodynamic principles and production methods. We created the CAD model in Autodesk Fusion 360, procured materials in accordance with the SAE Aero design rule book, manufactured the planes, and evaluated the design's proficiency on the runway before entering the competition.
Pictures from the Competition
Technical Inspection of DJS Skylark Regular Class
Assembling the plane before flight rounds
Fully assembled Micro Class Aircraft ready for flight
This was our breakthrough season and we retained the 1st position amongst teams from the Asia Pacific region.
