U of M team soars above international competition

Fort Garry

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This article was published 26/04/2023 (1182 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The University of Manitoba SAE Aero team won first place in the international SAE Aero Design East 2023 competition held last month in Lakeland, Fla.

The team brought home four plaques this year for its entry in the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) design, build and fly competition — first place overall, first in mission performance, and second in both oral presentation and design report.

The group of mechanical engineering and computer science students had to create a remote-controlled plane completely from scratch. The final aircraft had a wingspan of 18 feet. They followed the project from the original napkin sketch to the final flight — almost to the second it lifted off from the ground, as participating groups at the competition were given only 90 seconds to prepare their crafts before they were sent into the air.

(We were) literally still screwing things on as it’s on the runway,” team member Ben Fransoo, 26, said.

Team co-lead Jazzy Kostelnyk, 21, described the win as unbelievable and said the gravity of the achievement has yet to dawn on all of them.

“We set out with a goal at the beginning of the year, where you know, I said this where it’s like, ‘OK, if we do really well on the report and presentation, I think we can win,’” she said.

The UMSAE Aero team is funded entirely by sponsors. There is no school credit involved, nor did group members receive input from professors or academic supervisors.

“It’s a student-design based competition. So … it’s really up to the students to decide on what to do,” said co-lead Tony Liang, 23.

“It feels like you can also network with others, so you build friendships and learn project management skills and all these things you just don’t get from the regular classes.”

Liang said it’s important for all the team members to have independent experience under their belts, which has helped the group become very close. They said their trip to the competition was basically a group of friends getting to travel and hang out in a motel.

There were some stressful nights, too. Members recalled many 3 a.m. discussions on how to keep everything together, down to how the foam was shaped in the box they used to transport their final project.

Through it all, there were never any altercations — apart from a notably aggressive water polo game, the team joked.

“If there were some issues, (there was) a discussion to come to the better solution and then move forward,” Liang said.

Their independence also gave them an advantage compared to other teams; most of the competitors were creating their planes as a final university project.

“I feel like we’re much more into it as a group when we’re doing it,” said payload lead Anirudh Kalia, 20. “We are there because we want to be there, so that makes such a huge difference. We’re up all night and we’re pulling all-nighters working on this thing, but, again, we’re having so much fun doing that. You can call it a family if you want.”

Every detail, down to how much wood glue was used on its prototypes, was decided and discussed as a team — important when the project is as specific and intricate as an aircraft.

The annual competition is structured so that the project’s theme and specifications are changed every three years. This year was the first of the current cycle, so, even though the U of M team won, members said they will be upgrading their project for next year’s competition, asking what worked, what didn’t and how to make it better.

When asked what they would do after graduation, the majority laughed and said they just wanted good jobs.