Model Airplanes

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Article source: http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/12/12/arts/design/museum-gallery-listings-for-dec-12-18.html

K-State’s Unmanned Aerial Systems Design Team is taking off literally and figuratively.

The team is comprised of students who dedicate their time and effort to constructing an aerial vehicle that automatically flies to different coordinates without the presence of a pilot. The team is based in the College of Engineering and includes students from a variety of different majors who contribute their knowledge to help create the most successful flying device possible. Collin Pierce, president of the UAS Team and a senior in mechanical engineering said he likes the variety of different majors coming together.

“The cool thing about us is that we are interdisciplinary,” Pierce said. “We have people from a lot of different majors who have different talents which is good because we can see different perspectives.”

The ultimate goal of the team is to construct the flying vehicle by June in order to compete in a competition sponsored by the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International. The competition is held every June at the Patuxent River Naval Air Station in Saint Inigoes, Maryland. Around 40 universities compete from all over the world. There are three major parts of the competition that every team must complete.

According to the AUVSI website, the first part of the competition requires each university to write a paper that can be up to 20 pages long. Teams write the paper to explain what they expect to do,

Article source: http://www.kstatecollegian.com/2014/12/10/unmanned-aerial-systems-design-team-has-high-hopes-for-flying-vehicle/

• Nasa’s archive of future aircraft concept designs feature needle-like bodies, sleek fuselages and delta wings
• One of the most popular designs is something called the ‘hybrid wing body’ which improves aerodynamics
• Similarly, the ‘double bubble’ D8 Series future aircraft design uses a very wide fuselage to provide extra lift
• Aeronautics engineers are also working to define a new standard for sonic booms to improve travel speed

By

Ellie Zolfagharifard for MailOnline

Published:
11:08 EST, 9 December 2014

|
Updated:
04:40 EST, 10 December 2014

Article source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2866982/The-shape-wings-come-Nasa-s-weird-wonderful-concept-planes-someday-make-supersonic-travel-common-place.html

Christopher Nolan’s quest for realistic-looking space travel in Interstellar was achieved partially through the amazing models of New Deal Studios, which used a lot of ingenuity to achieve Nolan’s very specific requests. One solution included a lot of salt.

FX Guide has an in-depth article on the miniatures used in Interstellar and the film techniques used by New Deal Studios, which is full of interesting little details about the production of the film. For example, of the three vehicles New Deal Studios made — the Ranger, the Lander, and the Endurance — only the Endurance existed solely as a model. In the case of the Endurance, “miniature” is relative: the 1/15 scale model was 14 feet across. Special effects supervisor Ian Hunter explained how they realized in three dimensions the designs already made for the film:

“We took Nathan’s basic shape and we worked also with concept artist Steve Burg on the details on the surface,” outlines Hunter. “The movie takes place in the near future and Chris wanted it to feel familiar. He wanted the ships to be based on existing NASA details and textures, but applied to these different shapes.”

Things were slightly different for the Ranger and the Lander, which had full-sized props that New Deal Studios had to match exactly in

Article source: http://io9.com/the-model-spaceships-that-made-interstellar-look-as-rea-1668650861