Click Bond Partners with UNLV Students for Design, Build, Fly Competition
As part of this goal, we recently partnered with the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) chapter of the AIAA, or the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics...
One important area of focus for Click Bond is helping to cultivate the next generation of manufacturing and engineering talent. As part of this goal, we recently partnered with the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) chapter of the AIAA, or the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, to help the team compete in the organization’s annual Design, Build, Fly Competition (DBF). Click Bond not only lent professional expertise to the team, but it also supplied essential parts toits aircraft.
The 2020-2021 competition — DBF’s 25th year — provides an opportunity for university students to apply real-world aircraft design experience to the design, fabrication, and demonstration of an unmanned, electric-powered, radio-controlled aircraft that best meets the assigned mission specifics. This year’s mission, an aircraft that can tow a sensor for a specified period of time while abiding by certain requirements for power and features, posed a number of challenges to the 120 student teams who competed. This was compounded by the limitations presented by the pandemic, including having some students graduate and leave the team before the project was done, as well as the need to maintain physical distance and use video to complete their project submissions.
As UNLV chapter president, project lead, and mechanical engineering major Jet Baroudi explains, the competition is comprised of four parts: a timed ground mission, in which the sensors and their containers are installed in the aircraft; then three separate air missions, in which students prove the aircraft can fly, demonstrate flight ability with sensors and containers on board, and race competitors around a course. Teams also had to submit a technical report detailing their project specifications.
Baroudi explains that he and teammate Karsten Cartright first connected with Click Bond at AIAA’s SciTech Forum and Exposition in 2019, where Click Bond had a booth and offered product demonstrations. “Karsten and I first saw Click Bond’s [fasteners] on a demonstration tray, and we realized they were perfect for our applications. We had blind holes in the structure that we never wanted to access again, so being able to bond the fastener to the surface was perfect for us.”
Click Bond not only provided nearly 200 fasteners to the team, but also the Mechanical Engineering team contributed input on the design and manufacture of the project. Though the team didn’t win the competition, it did earn an impressive 10th place out of 92 competitors. It was exciting to see the talent in some of Nevada’s up-and-coming engineers. Please join me in congratulating the entire team for a job well done!
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