The Great Hall in Levering became an aviation battleground one afternoon last week for the 2024 MechE Freshmen Design Challenge, where 22 teams of first-year mechanical engineering students faced a seemingly simple but deceptively difficult challenge: send a small vehicle down a ramp to launch a tiny glider into the air and across the room.
One team loaded their wheeled vehicles onto the left side of the ramp; another on the right. The crowd held its collective breath. Then team members sent their vehicles racing downward, releasing their Blue Jay–themed gliders at the bottom of the ramp.
Image caption: Students gather around to watch their competitors
Image credit: Larry Canner for Johns Hopkins University
The crowd erupted as competing gliders soared as they attempted to clear a banner—signed by Department of Mechanical Engineering students and friends— a few feet off the ground and a couple of yards away. Teams with names like Lightning McJay, Blue Jay Industries, and Jet Blue competed to emerge victorious in this year's competition.
"This was definitely a challenging assignment—one that pushed our students to consider important engineering concepts such as aerodynamics, design, impact, and how to use momentum effectively," said Steven Marra, associate teaching professor, instructor for the Intro to MechE Design & CAD course, and mastermind of this year's challenge.
While several teams successfully launched their gliders over the banner, others saw their hopes crash to earth.
"There were some designs that just didn't work, but that's always the case. What really matters now is for the students to learn and understand why a design didn't work as planned and use this knowledge to do better in their next projects," commented Marra, who said the teams would review their designs with him in coming classes.
Team Bad Hair Jay celebrated a good air day, as team members Karina George, Ibk Ibironke, and Duc Le took down Team Jlider in the finals.
"We spent a lot of time and many frustrating hours working in the lab trying to get our vehicle to work," Le said. "But overall this was a great experience and we really enjoyed applying the concepts taught in our lectures to our project."
Image caption: Winning team Bad Hair Jay shows off their victorious vehicles
Image credit: Larry Canner for Johns Hopkins University
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