Undergraduate aircraft design team

UAV: SAE Aero Design

Power team leadership, aircraft sizing, CAD, programming, and multidisciplinary design for competition-scale aircraft.

Blue and black competition aircraft on an airfield runway — Competition aircraft on the runway during test or event operations.

CAD render of a balsa-style scale aircraft structure — CAD model showing the internal structural layout of the aircraft.

SAE Aero Design aircraft video.

Overview

For the first three years of my undergraduate studies at Tecnologico de Monterrey, I participated in the university aeronautical engineering team for the SAE Aero Design competition. My work centered on the power team, where we sized and selected the power plant for scale aircraft built around competition constraints.

The project required technical coordination across aerodynamics, structures, manufacturing, controls, and operations. It became one of the first places where I connected engineering analysis with the practical decisions required to build and fly a physical system.

Tools and Skills

CAD, aircraft sizing, engineering calculations, programming, documentation, team communication, and design reviews.

Outcome

The work strengthened my ability to evaluate tradeoffs, communicate across specialties, and turn analysis into hardware decisions under real constraints.