A month before Christmas, on 24th November, a structural competition took place at the Institute of Aerospace Engineering. The competition was for teams containing 2-3 students of bachelors study at Faculty of Mechanical Engineering. Students had a goal to produce a panel, which would withstand prescribed load and that would be as light as possible, only with help of a paper and glue.
Thirty teams (67 students) registered into the competition, all the teams delivered a test panel, and almost all of them withstood prescribed load (often with big reserve). The competition was prepared under support of Zodiac Aerospace company from which Marco Wagendorp, engineering director of Netherland office of Zodiac Galleys Europe, visited us on the final competing day. After load tests of all panels Marco presented company Zodiac Aerospace and galleys which they develop and produce for Airbus and Boeing airliners.
A competition task was drawn to approach sandwich structure application of our industrial partner and students got theoretical bases to orientate in the sandwich field, nonetheless conception of a tube frame covered by face assured the first prize to the team “Jaký je plán” (“What’s the plan”). Lukáš Tatýrek and Tomáš Adam together won a check for 12 000 CZK (app. 444 euro) with this panel which weighted only 52 grams and which withstood 40 N. Other teams were not out of profit because first 5 places were awarded, first 2 teams got special gifts from Marco, all the contestants gained experiences surpassing classical school education, and they will be able to wear a T-shirt with competition logo.
Link to full competition task (in Czech) http://www.lu.fme.vutbr.cz/soutez/
Photo-presentation capturing the entire competition: Zodiac_Aerospace_Challenge-prezentation_EN