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CECS Spotlight: Flight plans
Designing and building an unmanned aeroplane for competition takes time and dedication.
For four of the last five years, engineering and arts student Rosie Barnes has travelled to the United States to take part in the model plane Aero Design(r) Competition. This year, the team's Jabiru aircraft came fourth overall out of a field of 35 competitors from US universities. As ANU Reporter discovered, weight lifting never sounded so involved before.What does the competition involve? The project is to design and make a remote control plane that can lift the most weight. There is a limit on the runway length, and on the wingspan. It also has to have a certain volume in the fuselage. There are a bunch of restrictions like that, which you have to accommodate. Then you go to the US, fly it, and see how much weight you can put it in it before it doesn't take off, or it crashes, or something.
How much work do you do prior to competing?
I would have spent hundreds and hundreds of hours this year alone. So for people who think it is a free trip over to America, that's not the case. It requires all this hard work on your own time including lots of really late nights in the workshop. What materials do you use for the plane?
If you build it well it will look good, but it's not just about looks.You want the surface to be nice and smooth to reduce drag. I like building things out of carbon fibre, so they always look solid black and shiny, which attracts a lot of attention over there. I think a good-looking plane gives you a psychological edge over the other competitors.
How have the ANU teams gone over the last few years?
The first year we came sixth over all, and won the award for the most innovative design. That was mostly Mike Roberts' work. The next year was worse, and the year after that we didn't take off at all. This year Aaron Hazelton, Dave Shurey and I ended up fourth over all, and we won the award for best oral presentation. We compete against big teams from universities across America. They don't like it much when we beat them, but everyone is pretty friendly and helpful.
How do you reconcile your interest in engineering and your studies in philosophy?
Everyone should have to do philosophy, otherwise you get all these engineers working on projects that influence the way the world works, but no-one thinks about why they're doing it or if they really should be doing it. I really think that should come first before all the technical and design issues.
