Concept Sketches
Bailey Caulkins:
My design is modeled like a paper air plane or like a bullet. The overall light design should allow for less energy consumption than other designs. The parts jetting out will be 3-D printed and placed by the motors to funnel the air as straight as possible. The out side will be covered in a shell to make it more aerodynamic. The entire design is to (hopefully) ensure energy efficiency.
Jacob Recker:
My design is made to be similar in shape to a bullet from the top view, but is much slimmer from a side or front view, making it much more aerodynamic. The entire design is to be encapsulated by a 3-D printed shell which will cover the entire AEV bar the motors and propellers. There are two additional 3-D printed parts that will be mounted in front of the motors (as seen in the right-side view), which will also improve aerodynamics.
Casey Stammer
When making my design, I decided to model it off of real-world planes that are designed by engineers that ensure that their design is the most efficient aerodynamically. This design, in theory, should cause the AEV to travel faster on the track and should keep the Arduino and battery safe while doing it. I believe most of this would be able to be made without 3D printing. If the AEV were to be back-heavy or front-heavy, then we could 3D print a piece to help balance it out.
Ian Zeid
My design is based on the B2 American stealth bomber. The overall design calls for a more rounded flat top with a triangular body. This aerodynamic design should allow for the AEV to move at faster speeds while using less energy. The wheels have been placed in the back and the front wheel lines up closely to the front tip of the AEV allowing for balance. Parts will be constructed through the use of solidworks and then 3D printed.
First Stage Sketch
In this design, we combined principles and ideas from all of the concept sketches to design an AEV shell that would ideally be as aerodynamic as possible. We also considered hardware layout to make sure all components were arranged in a fashion that was acceptable.
Second Stage – AEV hardware layout reconfiguration
After putting our hardware components together and assembling our AEV without the shell, we realized that our design was very off-kilter. It leaned to the left dramatically, so we moved the battery from the top on the front to the back under the propeller on the right side. This fixed our balancing issue. This became our final hardware layout.
Initial SolidWorks Design
After reconsidering our new design, we decided to drastically redesign our shell to more resemble a bullet as apposed to a B-2 Bomber plane.
Final SolidWorks Design
We ran into a few problems while finalizing the last design, so we decided to redesign our shell again and reached our final design. We are very happy with this new design because it is much more sleek and will cause less drag, as well as reducing the overall weight.This design also adds key components that make attaching and detaching the shell considerably easier.
Final AEV in SolidWorks Design
Unfortunately, after considering ways around it, we decided it was best to remove our AEV shell for several reasons. We reverted back to the same design as seen above in the “Second Stage – AEV Hardware Layout Reconfiguration” picture. Ultimately, this decision proved successful and beneficial to us, as we greatly improved upon energy consumption once we removed the shell.