Speedfest XIV: Critical design review, Orange Team 2025

Speedfest is a design competition between two teams of aerospace engineering students at OSU: Black Team and Orange Team. Over the course of just 16 weeks, we designed high-speed composite UAVs from the ground up in response to a design challenge provided by our professor in the form of a statement of work. This year, the challenge was to design and manufacture a pylon racing plane that could also perform advanced aerobatic maneuvers. The Critical Design Review (CDR) presentation submitted as this thesis took place at the end of February and marked the end of the Speedfest design phase and the beginning of manufacturing. It represents the culmination of work done by Orange Team’s three main subteams: aerodynamics, propulsion, and structures. This year, I served as the head of the structures team and was in charge of both the structural design and manufacturing of our planes. Our CDR was successfully passed, and between late February and the end of April, we built a total of eight planes for the Speedfest competition held on April 26th. I spent over 500 hours in the lab this semester, but it was incredibly worth it. Getting to build composite aircraft by hand as an undergraduate student is a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and the leadership and management skills I gained along the way will stick with me for years to come.