The team consisting of the Poznan University of Technology students won the first prize in the international academic competition SAE AeroDesign West which took place on 18-20 March 2011 in Forth Worth in Texas in the USA.

The team from the Students’ Aviation Club in the Poznan University of Technology has gained three awards in total:

- for taking the first place in the Micro Class  in the category of the biggest lifting capacity ratio (the relation between the lifted load and total weight of the aircraft),

- for taking the second place in the Micro Class in general classification,

- for taking the third place in the Regular Class in the technical presentation classification.

Designing their machines the representations of the Universities of Technologies from all over the word have to comply with a little different rules every year and limitations imposed by the organizers. In the beginning of the competition the engineers from Lockheed-Martin and NASA judge the quality of the designs, paying extra attention to the application of innovative and practical solutions. After

the “ stative” stage it is the time for the biggest emotions – two days of flights while which the aircrafts designed and constructed by the students must carry bigger and bigger loads to determine and sometimes even to go beyond their capabilities.

The participation in the AeroDesign competition is a challenge which requires full involvement of the students at each stage – from designing, through constructing until the moment of presentation of the concept in front of the experienced engineers and steering of the aircraft loaded till the limits of its capacity.

SAE AeroDesign is an international students competition which has been organized for 25 years by the American Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) in cooperation with the following firms: Boeing, Lockhead Martin or NASA. The task for participants, students groups from all over the world, is to design and construct the model of the aircraft according to the limitations imposed by the organizer. Besides preparing the technical specification the teams have to make technical presentation and then to lift with their model the biggest possible load while flying. During the competition the students learn how to solve technical, organizational and logistic problems by themselves, how to work in a group, how to present and record their achievements. According to professor Jerzy Nawrocki from the Poznan University of Technology “competitions like SAE  AeroDesign change the education from learning by reading type into learning by doing type”.

Picture – The Poznan University of Technology’s Team (information source: www.aerodesign.com.pl)