Writing the rules: An inside look at the AIAA student design/build/fly competition

The Cessna/ONR Student Design/Build/Fly contest has recently completed its 10^th year. The competition was founded as a "hands on" student experience to enhance their knowledge and ability to work in an industry environment after graduation. The vehicle for this experience is to design, build, and fly an electric R/C airplane to achieve a specified objective (range, payload, speed, etc). The winner is determined by the best combination of written report and flight performance, the latter determined at the competition flyoff. The initial DBF proposal was a "grass roots" effort - engineer driven by members of the AIAA Technical Committees - and it has kept this flavor throughout its history. This nature has been one of the keys to the success of the contest. Also key was the desire to keep the competition fresh, by continually challenging the students with new design objectives every year. This also requires a fresh look by the organizing committee at writing the rules, with continued attempts to learn from the previous years' experience. As always, however, the law of unintended consequences prevails, and new lessons await the students and the organizers together each year. As the Design/Build/Fly competition moves forward into its next decade, we anticipate many surprises, hopefully most of them good ones.