Spotlight: Design Build Fly (DBF

Design Build Fly

airplane. Photo / Design

Build Fly, @hokiesDBF

WARE LAB SPOTLIGHT: DESIGN BUILD FLY

Article + Interview / Isabella Bartolome

What is your name, major, and role?

Shreya Chandramouli

Chief Engineer for Design Build Fly

Role: Oversee leads, delegate work, and ensure sub-teams are integrated. When the team begins designing, building, and flying the plane, she oversees all operations and verifies the plane is being constructed appropriately.

Design Build Fly is a competition team. There’s an annual competition in Wichita, Kansas or Tuscon, Arizona where teams fly remote-controlled aircraft. The design switches every year between a military-style plane and a commercial-style plane. The rules vary drastically each year, so it’s a way for the teams to gain new experiences and learn a lot. DBF is a great opportunity for students to get involved and be able to build and see a plane in the air.

Why should students get involved with Design Build Fly and what are some benefits of being on the team?

Professionally, being on Design Build Fly is something you’re able to take with you to career fairs and say, “not only have I gone through the classes in my major, but I’ve actually built a plane with my hands.” Recruiters love to see the application.

Additionally, our team gives presentations to professors and industry professionals to validate designs. Receiving advice from experienced engineers who are out in the working world is beneficial. You can build very good leadership and communication skills on the team.

Teamwork and communication within the team are probably two of the best things you can get from any design team, but especially DBF. If you’re not communicating within your sub-team, then your part can’t be integrated and the plane can’t fly. You have to be in constant communication. If there’s anyone who’s following an idea without telling anyone, the rest of the plane can fail. Learning the teamwork aspect is something you can take into the industry as well. Engineers tend to do their own work, but if you can’t communicate your results with other sub-team members and your coworkers, then your whole system isn’t going to work as well as you expected.

It’s also a lot of fun being on DBF!

How can students get involved with Design Build Fly?

We’re different from other design teams because we’re open throughout the year and we have no application process. You can find us at Gobblerfest, O-Show, and other engineering recruitment events. I’m guessing we’re going to be somewhat virtual for our big meetings, but hopefully going virtual will be an easier way for people to get involved. We do welcome everyone: whatever major and whatever grade. I’ve been on the team for four years, so I know the traditions of designing, building, and flying the planes with DBF, but when we have people join who have built planes as a passion project in high school or middle school, it’s so exciting to see their perspective and apply that to what we do.

Design Build Fly team photo. Photo / DBF

Do you have to be a specific major or grade to join?

We build planes, so we do attract many Aerospace Engineering majors. This past year, we’ve had more Mechanical Engineering students, which is very helpful because they have experience with the design process and manufacturing process; Aerospace Engineers know the theoretical side mostly. We value every applicable major. If you’re an Economics major and you love building planes, we’re open to that. Having experience in building planes is good, but we want to teach you. Our goal is to teach you how to build a plane and not just have you be able to help us, so we’re open to everyone.

What does the design process entail for Design Build Fly?

We usually have a proposal due and, based on the proposal, if you get within the top 100 or 115 teams, you’ll be able to send in your report to go to competition. If you’re within that 115 buffer, then you’re in the competition. The proposal submission occurs around November. Competition and design rules will come out by mid-September, and then our final reports are due in February. Our report scores contribute to our flight score, so when we go to competition in April, the flight line (which indicates who’s going to fly first, second, etc.) is based on your proposal score. When you fly, there are usually three attempts and you’ll get a score on each. The final score you receive is normalized by everyone else in the competition and factored in is the proposal score as well.

There are three major dates: the proposal, report, and flight competition.

- Chandramouli

Design Build Fly team members assembling their aircraft.

Photo / Design Build Fly, @hokiesDBF In Wichita two years ago, DBF won second place, which is the best VT has ever done. That was an amazing experience and I can say for sure after seeing our plane fly that it was so smooth and it was great to see it compete. We’ve also won fourth place before in Wichita.

We have a thing called “The Curse of Tucson.” We generally don’t do too well at Tucson because military aircraft have a lot more systems and components, so getting each one to work and perform properly is more difficult than you may expect. My goal this year is to win first place. It’s going to be very hard because breaking that curse has been years in the making, so hopefully, this is the year. I know this is the year, I’m so intent.

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We generally bring our leads and about six to eight more people who are genuinely involved and who can help us during competition. Of course, with 20 people from our team around at competition, not everyone is going to be touching the plane. Ideally, no one should be touching the plane because we want it to be ready to fly by competition, but each person generally has a specific component that they’ve been dealing with the entire year and, if there’s a faulty part, then that person can immediately help. Competition is a great networking experience and shows teams that there’s not one solution to building the perfect plane.

“Once you get to the competition, you can nerd out because there are such cool planes. It’s exciting and sad to see planes crash; ours has done that, so we know what it’s like.” - Chandramouli

Design Build Fly Airplane Photo / Design Build Fly, @hokiesDBF

The competition brings in about 100 teams internationally, so people from Slovenia, Germany, and all over the world come and fly their planes. Your scores are normalized with the top-scoring person of each round, so that allows for equal representation of who’s performing better than someone else. The top three winners receive awards, a book, and money for the team.

What is the best thing/favorite moment you have gotten out of Design Build Fly?

We have a lot! Something we do as a team before our big flights is stay in the bay throughout the night until flight time. We do all-nighters more often than we should and they sound miserable, but they’re a lot of fun because it’s people that are just tired but so motivated because they love this plane and they want to see it succeed. Once it hits 4 A.M., people get kind of loopy and we make jokes out of anything we see and it’s a lot of fun. Spending time with the team and really getting to know each other on a personal note when we’re doing something we all love is just a general memory that I can take away when I graduate and I’m so happy I got to do this with the team.

Any last thoughts for potential team members?

I was the only female on the team when I first joined and going from that to becoming Chief Engineer is something I’m very proud of. More importantly, I want to serve as an inspiration for young females who are going into the aerospace industry. The number of females in the aerospace industry is so low and it’s increasing slowly, but having just one female on DBF makes such a big difference. Right now, there are two other female leads on DBF, which is very exciting, and the number of females on our team has been increasing in general as well. I want to show people that they are welcome and that this is a comfortable environment and team.

Design Build Fly aircraft. Photo / Design Build Fly, @hokiesDBF