With help from George Gurney and Al Neissner
of the
State College Radio Control Club
We plan to have them build a well-known model called the DuskStik. These can be built for about $200 including:
and we hope to help the students with the costs. The students will be asked to pay a large part of these costs however. ( I still need to work out the exact costs, but it will be roughly $150 from the student and $50 from PSU ). Note that the kit itself is fairly inexpensive. The electronics account for most of the cost, and these are reusable (ie you can use them with other R/C models in the future -- especially the 4-channel radio, battery charger, and receiver). Note also that this is a fairly simple model, it has only an elevator, a rudder, and a speed control (ie 3 channels are used). More sophisticated aircraft will also have ailerons, which would require a 4th channel, but the radios do have four channels. (by the way for R/C helicopters you'd need 6 channels, and they sell up to 9 channel radios).
The tools required to build these are:
We would really like all 20 students to leave the class with their own completely functioning and flyable aircraft. Prof. Long has already built one of these, and students in AERSP 402A have built these as well. West Point Military Academy is also using these in their design course (taught by Prof. Bob Hansen). With these aircraft they will begin to appreciate aerodynamics, structures, stability, and control. They will also get experience using servo motors, transmitters, receivers, and electric motors.
They will also use these to learn how to fly radio-control models. These lightly-loaded models are the best way to learn to fly R/C aircraft, since they are very forgiving of pilot errors and fly very slowly. They can also be flown in many parks and fields (and possibly even indoors, in a large auditorium). There are other very nice beginner aircraft (e.g. the SoarStar), but they do not involve building and covering a model like the Duskstik does. At the end of the semester, there will be a competition to see which aircraft flies the best. The students may also be able to attach one of our small digital cameras and capture live video images. Prof. Long will coordinate this course, with help from guest lecturers from the local R/C aircraft club (George Gurney and Al Neissner). There are on-line directions to the SCRC flying field.
We believe that experience in building and flying these R/C models will help the students in their junior and senior courses, where they will study aerodynamics, structures, stability, control, and propulsion. Hands-on experience will help make the complex comcepts more understandable.
It is very important to get a group of students involved in R/C aircraft as freshman. Many future aircraft willed be unmanned systems, and experience with R/C aircraft will be quite valuable to the students. There is an international society devoted to unmanned vehicles ( http://www.auvsi.org/) and there are now large conference devoted to these as well (e.g. http://www.auvsi.org/symposium/ ).
I would like to see a Penn State student club for R/C Aircraft, there are on-line instructions for how to do this . I'd be willing to be the club advisor.
Credits: 1
Course webpage: http://www.personal.psu.edu/lnl/097/
Instructor: Prof. Lyle N. Long , lnl at psu.edu
Tentative Meeting Time: Tuesdays, 2:30 - 3:45 PM (for 10 weeks only)
Room: 306 Hammond Building
Books (optional):
I also plan to show a few video tapes in class, such as:
I will also have an R/C flight simulator available, so you can practice flying (without crashing your model!). This will be the Great Planes G2 Simulator, but there are others available too (e.g. from Dave Brown). There is even a free one you can download at: http://n.ethz.ch/student/mmoeller/fms/index_e.html .
The grades in the course will be computed according to:
That's it. Lets have some fun!