Our Experience at the SAE Aero Design East 2026

This was our first time competing in the Advanced Class, where we placed 12th overall. Our Micro Class aircraft, which placed 7th overall, also represented a large leap forward in our team's technical capabilities as it was our first delta-wing aircraft. Both competition categories presented many new challenges across design, simulation, and manufacturing, but the hard work of everyone involved allowed us to overcome all of these. Read on for the entire story of our experience at competition!

Preparing for Competition

After participating in SAE Aero Design East 2025, where we placed 5th overall in Micro Class, our team was bursting with energy and ideas for the next competition. One particular highlight from that competition was watching all of the Advanced Class aircraft attempt autonomous VTOL transitions, which inspired us to compete in both the Micro Class and Advanced Class for 2026.

Early in the summer, we decided to pursue a delta-wing design for Micro Class because it showed promise for improving upon our 2025 flight score, while also presenting new technical challenges for our team. Our first prototype WM-11, which flew in July 2025, was a simple foamboard design with angular panels instead of smooth curves. Although the first flight didn’t land successfully, it helped our team get familiar with designing and simulating delta-wing aircraft.

In parallel to the delta-wing development, our team also began working on our first VTOL aircraft for Advanced Class. Since we didn’t have any prior experience with vertical flight, we spent most of the summer working on achieving a stable hover with a tethered tricopter.

Scaling our team to work on both classes required us to recruit many new members during the fall term, which provided more students with opportunities to get hands-on aerospace engineering experience. With more students, we were able to iterate faster and explore new manufacturing techniques like composite layups, thermoforming, and CNC milling.

The new manufacturing capabilities that we developed as a team allowed us to progressively build more complex aircraft throughout the fall and early winter. For the second prototype of Micro Class, WM-25, we used CNC foam milling to build a delta-wing with 2D curves. It also provided us with an opportunity to test dual motor propulsion, which we knew would help us improve the overall efficiency of our powertrain. Based on the flight test results, we quickly followed this up with the third and final prototype, WM-36, which featured 3D curves and a payload tank. At the same time, our Advanced Class aircraft also began to take shape, with separate subteams working on the robotic payload, airframe, and autonomy.

By winter, our designs were locked and we moved into manufacturing the aircraft out of balsa. Everyone on the team came together to pitch-in whenever they could, from baby-sitting the 3D printer to pulling long hours to superglue balsa assemblies. Before long, March rolled around and it was time to pack the cars and head to Florida.

Getting to Florida

With 2 trucks and a van, our team set out for the 20hr drive from Waterloo, ON to Lakeland, FL in the early hours of March 4. This was our biggest competition contingent yet, with 14 people in the vehicles and 3 more joining us by flight.

On the way to Lakeland, we stopped by Rock Hill, South Carolina and Jacksonville Beach, Florida. Although we were exhausted from the roadtrip by the time we arrived in Lakeland, there was no time to waste as we transformed our Airbnb into a makeshift workshop to put the final touches on our aircraft.

Competition

The three days of competition were a non-stop marathon of effort. Luckily, having 17 students allowed us to work in shifts as we rotated through technical inspections, flight attempts and aircraft modifications.

Our Micro Class aircraft Baymax cleared inspection on the first try, which was a marked improvement from 2025. This gave us time to diagnose some issues that popped-up with our dual-motor propulsion system, which we ultimately solved through ground testing in a tennis court. In parallel to this, the Advanced Class members also put in a herculean effort to capture a proof of flight video for their aircraft Tom & Jerry, which was a prerequisite for any official flight attempt at competition.

The next day, we were able to make 2 flight attempts with our Micro Class aircraft. It was a huge morale booster for the team to see Baymax taxiing on the runway, and she took off to huge cheers. Unfortunately, Baymax had a tendency to veer right, which forced our pilot to put her down in both attempts because of safety regulations.

Although we weren’t able to make any flight attempts with Tom & Jerry, our team made good use of competition by speaking to other teams and judges to understand how they could improve for next year. By the end of competition, our team was once again bursting with energy and ideas for the next competition.

Looking Ahead to 2027

As a team, our philosophy has always been to aim progressively higher so that we can continue to provide students with opportunities to develop their skills in aerospace engineering. We are already hard at work applying what we learned from our experience at SAE Aero Design East 2026, and we are looking forward to improving on our results in 2027.

If you are interested in joining the team, please fill out this form

If you are interested in sponsoring us, please email waterlooarrow@gmail.com.