The Team
In order to best facilitate the multi-disciplinary collaboration vital to both competition performance and the training of the next generation of engineers, the Design Build Fly Team at the University of Washington is divided into six sub-teams. These teams act under the guidance of nine leads: six specialists and three coordinators/directors.
Each team offers members the opportunity to obtain experience in work of their individual fields of interest and manages a design step or subsystem(s) critical to the design and fabrication of an aircraft.
Structures Team
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Designs all load bearing components.
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Optimizes structural performance through FEA.
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Responsible for the build integration of all sub-components.
Aerodynamics Team
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Responsible for the external geometry of the aircraft.
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Runs Computational Fluid Dynamics simulations to predict aircraft performance.
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Compares wind tunnel data to predicted performance.
Payload Team
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Oversees the aircraft's payload function.
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Finds creative solution to perform specialized missions.
Materials Design Team
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Experiments with new materials and applications.
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Improves aircraft performance by exploiting material properties.
Manufacturing Team
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Supervises members on part production.
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Responsible for detailed fabrication of aircraft.
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Performs design review of aircraft with an emphasis on manufacturability of components.
Business Team
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Responsible for budget, sponsorship, and purchasing.
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Manages the team fundraiser and social media.
The Sub-teams
Avionics and Propulsion Team
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Responsible for helping the airframe achieve flight through power and controls, while maintaining its airworthiness and validating its design through field-side engineering.
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Overview of systems onboard an airplane and configuring flight systems, executing flight tests, and collecting live data for analysis.
