2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

For the Senior Design project, a group of four individuals will do research, design, and fly model prototype of a radio-controlled electric airplane that will inevitably abide by the rules and guidelines set by the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) for their 2025 competition. The team plans to employ an interdisciplinary approach, integrating electrical, electronics, mechanical and computer engineering technologies to develop essential systems including aerodynamics, control systems, and power distribution. The team will research and build many different possible designs for the aircraft considering force, lift, drag, and thrust in SolidWorks, and run the tests, simulation to choose the best design. During the test phase, the stress levels for the wings will be measured to make sure it can carry our payload with ease.
The implemented prototype should be able to withstand several factors such as weight distribution and supersede flight duration of the SAE guidelines. With the current SAE constraints, the plane must be able to complete a flight path and should not exceed a 4-minute mission duration while carrying a payload of 2-liters worth of water. In doing so, the SAE competition would be able to test the model, teamwork, and understanding of the core principles of engineering. Teams are incentivized to complete set tasks in under four minutes, and if completed successfully, would be granted a higher performance mark which will improve their final score. The successful completion of this capstone project will not only yield a functional prototype but also provide the students with invaluable experience and insights into the engineering design process, preparing them for future professional endeavors.