Every year, senior engineering majors at John Brown University take a senior design class. The students are split into teams of four and each given a different project to complete during the fall and spring semesters. Senior mechanical engineering students Jonny Bontrager, Harry Hunnicutt, Megan Gruen and Caylee Ciesla were given the task of making an airplane.
“For me, I’m very interested in aircrafts and aviation so it was a first choice for me. I knew I would like to be on this, really all four years of my schooling here, so I tried to channel myself in to be on this project,” Gruen said.
Before even being able to build the plane, the student team had to plan out how they were going to accomplish all their tasks. While some of the senior design groups are commissioned to make something specific for different companies or help contribute to an ongoing project, the students assigned to the aircraft work on it in order to compete at a yearly competition. This year, the students had the goal of attending the American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics Design/Build/Fly competition.
“We decided early on that we were going to take the simplest design routes just to make it doable. In that we made a plane that was pretty easy to manufacture, and replicate and fix,” Bontragger said.
Over the past two semesters, Bontrager, Hunnicutt, Gruen and Ciesla have been working on not only building the aircraft, but also adhering to the guidelines given out by the AIAA DBF competition. Each team member was assigned an area to work on. Bontrager worked on the modeling and simulation, Hunnicutt focused on the electrical work needed on the plane, and Gruen and Ciesla oversaw the manufacturing and documentation. All this hard work paid off when, in the end, the students were able to earn an invitation to the international competition.
“This team worked hard to prepare a competitive proposal, which earned them an invitation to the competition. They identified high-priority tasks early on and set internal deadlines that promoted steady progress throughout the duration of the project. The team also built valuable relationships with technical consultants, and they displayed humility and gratefulness as they sought out and received feedback,” the team's faculty advisor Dr. Chaz Miller, said.
This year’s AIAA DBF competition took place in Tucson, Arizona, and lasted April 10 - 13. The competition had over 100 schools participating, with 13 different countries being represented. During the four days, each team had to go through tech inspections before proceeding onto the three flight missions. While the JBU team started off strong, being placed at 71 out of 110 teams with their report score, the team hit a few snags during their tech inspections and worked together to fix the plane and prepare it for the first mission.
Once the team passed the tech inspections, they were more than ready to have their plane in the air, weather permitting. As a part of preparing for the competition, the students worked with local radio-controlled plane experts who helped them practice flying their plane to ensure that it was ready for the competition. The first time the team saw their plane fly, the whole team felt relief.
“It was relief and excitement,” Bontrager said. “There hasn’t been a whole lot of flight success the last couple years so just having that early was nice.”
This success carried on during the competition and, after successfully completing the first flight mission, the JBU team was able to move on to the next step of the competition. Unfortunately, due to time constraints, they were unable to complete any more missions before the competition ended. The team ended up placing at 69 out of 110 teams. Not only were Bontrager, Hunnicutt, Gruen and Ciesla the first JBU students to compete in three years, but they also gave a tremendous showing at the competition, being from a smaller program compared to the other schools.
“I'm very proud of this group. They’ve laid the groundwork for JBU to be a perennial contender in this competition. I hope next year’s team will continue to build on the momentum,” Miller said. “I hope the students take pride in their work and how they've represented our university. I hope they take their learnings on teamwork, resiliency, and ingenuity into their professional careers and have impacts in their future roles like they’ve had for our team.”
As JBU engineering students continue to compete at the AIAA DBF competition and work on their senior design projects, this year’s seniors have some parting wisdom.
“You’ll thank yourself if you get into the competition. If you really put the work in, in the proposal, you’ll be incredibly thankful when you get to the competition and see all the fruits of your labor,” Gruen said.
Photo Courtesy of Jonny Bontrager