State Challenge

Each year, the State level Real World Design Challenge will present students with an opportunity to create solutions to a problem faced by one of our Nation’s leading industries. The 2010 Governor's Cup State Challenge, to be released in September 14, 2009, will address fuel efficiency in aviation. Utilizing professional engineering design software, collaborative web-based tools, and the expertise of mentor scientists and engineers from federal agencies, the aviation industry, colleges and universities, student teams will spend several months creating solutions to the Challenge. These solutions will be submitted for judging on January 15, 2010. One team will be selected to represent each state at the National Challenge Event held in Washington, DC during March 26-29 2010.

Design and optimize a business jet tail for a specified cruise condition. Students are allowed a range of tail configurations including Conventional, Cruciform, "T", "H", "V", Inverted "V", "Y", or "X". Teams are provided engineering tools including Pro.E (geometric design), FloEFD.Pro (aerodynamic solver), the RWDC Analysis Program (structure and weight analysis), and a NASA tail sizing process. The challenge scoring will focus on design notebook quality, technical merit, innovation, teamwork and collaboration, and effective networking with mentors. See the Coaches Handbook for additional details.