Development of a remotely piloted aircraft for the Design/Build/Fly competition as a capstone engineering design project

The Design/Build/Fly competition (DBF) is an annual aerospace engineering competition hosted by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA). Oregon State University's AIAA chapter competed for the first time at DBF in 2013 and finished in the top 25% which is a respectable finish for a first year team. By compiling observations from the 2013 competition and developing new strategies for future competitions, the team can be even more competitive in future years. This document is intended to become a "roadmap for success" for future Oregon State University DBF teams. The roadmap includes two aspects. The first is developing a class structure that will foster a competitive design. This will be coupled with a breakdown of the aspects necessary to produce the best possible plane and technical report at the design and build phases of the project. The capstone course and competition rules both try to challenge the students in similar ways. This document will propose an alignment of the requirements in the capstone course with the AIAA DBF rules to allow students to strive for the best in both instead of slitting their time between two sets of requirements. The documentation of the 2013 competition will help the future students gain a better understanding of the design and build process along with the actual competition setting