{"497211":{"#nid":"497211","#data":{"type":"news","title":"But Does it Fly? Intro AE Students put Their Skills to the Test","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EIt wasn\u0027t\u0026nbsp;\u003Cem\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003Eall\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/em\u003Efun and games. But it was\u003Cstrong\u003E\u003Cem\u003Ea lot\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/strong\u003Eof fun.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThat\u0027s how most would describe the final design project for Professor Stephen Ruffin\u0027s AE1601B -- Introduction to Aerospace Engineering: design, build and launch a balsa wood glider from the running deck of the CRC.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe glider that flew the furthest distance over the vacated basketball court below won. They each got three tries.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0022The winning team got 5 percent extra credit points for this assignment,\u0022 said Ruffin, the official launcher of all 13 vehicles.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0022What I\u0027m really interested in is the report that they write, -- which is worth 70 percent -- because that will incorporate what happened today -- how their glider fared.\u0022 The rest of the activity\u0027s grade -- 30 percent -- will be determined by how well the vehicle was constructed and how well it performed.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe official report will follow the same AIAA guidelines that \u0027real\u0027 airplane designers must follow for technical reports.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0022So, no matter how their plane did, every team will learn how to write up a professional report,\u0022 Ruffin said.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAll 13 teams were given the same materials to work with -- a sheet of balsa wood, a balsa rod, one small sheet of very fine sandpaper, six thumb tacks, three rubber bands, and some wood glue.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThere were no restrictions on the wood glue, which turned out to be a good thing. Ruffin estimated that about a third of the vehicles took some painful nose-dives on the first of their three runs. Without a little glue, their flying careers would have ended right there.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0022After the first round, I didn\u0027t think I\u0027d see some of them back, but they all kept coming back,\u0022\u0026nbsp;said Ruffin. \u0022And the thing is, they did better.\u0022\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe most important thing, he stressed, was that the students developed a better grasp of the center of gravity and the aerodynamic center -- concepts that they studied in class.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0022Basically, if your center of gravity is behind the aerodynamic center, your glider will have an uneasy flight, a lot of up and down,\u0022 he said.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0022But if your center of gravity is too far ahead of the aerodynamic center, you\u0027ll have a stable flight, but it won\u0027t go very far.\u0022\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0022They had to choose a name that had significance to the field,\u0022 said Ruffin.However low their individual scores might have been, all of the teams had some pretty highfalutin\u0027 names for their gliders: Glenn (as in John), Wright (as in Wilbur) and Bolden (as in NASA), among others.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe winner in all three trials was the\u0026nbsp; USA 5 airfoil R. T. Jones -- named after the late aerodynamicist who discovered the theory of the simple swept-back wing. In all three trials, it sailed smoothly past the competition, eventually earning the best score of 105\u00272\u0022.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIts designers, Kevin Tran, 19 of Seattle WA, Turner Glynn, 19, of Newton, NC, and Keenan Nicholson, 19, of Cumming GA received polo shirts and a lot of high-fives from their classmates.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0022We just got together and researched everything we could about how to make it fly as far as possible,\u0022 said Nicholson.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0022Our wings had a good aspect ratio - high - and the angle of the wing was 10 degrees, which keeps it stronger. The surfaces on the back are undersized because we knew we didn\u0027t have to maneuver. We just needed to fly straight. You actually wouldn\u0027t want to be a passenger.\u0022\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/ae.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/img\/03-30%20AE1601_BalsaGlider_FlightRecords.pdf\u0022\u003E\u003Cem\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ESee all of the results here.\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EAll 13 teams were given the same materials to work with -- a sheet of balsa wood, a balsa rod, one small sheet of very fine sandpaper, six thumb tacks, three rubber bands, and some wood glue. The winning glider, R.T. Jones, sailed 105 feet, 2 inches.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"The final design project for Professor Stephen Ruffin\u0027s AE 1601B - Introduction to Aerospace Engineering was to design, build and launch a balsa wood glider from the running deck of the CRC."}],"uid":"30502","created_gmt":"2016-02-09 12:31:06","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:20:38","author":"Sapna Mistry","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2015-03-30T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2015-03-30T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"497231":{"id":"497231","type":"image","title":"Intro to AE - Ruffin and Abel","body":null,"created":"1455120000","gmt_created":"2016-02-10 16:00:00","changed":"1475895256","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:54:16","alt":"Intro to AE - Ruffin and Abel","file":{"fid":"204625","name":"dsc_0864.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/dsc_0864_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/dsc_0864_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":1320089,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/dsc_0864_0.jpg?itok=Ar5kZ9ij"}},"497241":{"id":"497241","type":"image","title":"Intro to AE - Winning Glider","body":null,"created":"1455120000","gmt_created":"2016-02-10 16:00:00","changed":"1475895256","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:54:16","alt":"Intro to AE - Winning Glider","file":{"fid":"204626","name":"dsc_0899.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/dsc_0899_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/dsc_0899_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":1379109,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/dsc_0899_0.jpg?itok=xyU7ccJV"}}},"media_ids":["497231","497241"],"groups":[{"id":"1239","name":"School of Aerospace Engineering"}],"categories":[{"id":"136","name":"Aerospace"},{"id":"134","name":"Student and Faculty"},{"id":"145","name":"Engineering"}],"keywords":[{"id":"2082","name":"aerospace engineering"},{"id":"169892","name":"Glider"},{"id":"126111","name":"GT-AE"},{"id":"169893","name":"Intro to AE"},{"id":"169894","name":"Stephen Ruffin"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[],"email":["kathleen.moore@ae.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}