Design, Build, Fly

An anteater wearing a pilot outfit with a plane taking off in front of it. The years 2023-2024 are in the plane's path. UCI is underneath the plane and "Design Build Fly" is to the right of the anteater.

Background

Design, Build, Fly is an annual international competition hosted by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) where the goal is to design and build a plane that completes the current year's missions while achieving the best score possible. This year, the competition is being held in Wichita, Kansas where there are three flight missions and one ground mission.

Goal and Objectives

The three flight missions this year are as follows:

Flight Mission #1: The airplane will fly with a pair of crew members made of wood dolls. It will need to complete 3 laps in a 5-minute flight window.
Flight Mission #2: The airplane will fly with the crew members, EMTs, patient on a gurney, and medical supply cabinet in the fuselage. It will also need to complete 3 laps in a 5-minute flight window.
Flight Mission #3: The airplane will fly with the crew members and passengers as the payload. It will need to fly as many laps as possible in a 5-minute flight window.

Between these three missions, the DBF team needs to be able to load and unload the different payloads as efficiently as possible as a part of the competition's requirements. Outside of the three flight missions, the airplane needs to perform a ground mission. The ground mission is as follows:

Ground Mission: A timed mission to demonstrate efficiently changing mission configurations.

Scoring Analysis: 10/11/2023

Proposal Review: 10/31/2023

Preliminary Design: 11/14/2023

Prototype Manufacturing: 1/26/2024

Final Design Report: 2/23/2024

Competition Manufacturing: 3/29/2024

Competition Test Flight: 3/29/2024

Competition: 4/21/2024

AIAA Proposal Result

Score: 78

Ranked #45/149