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University of Akron Sweeps SAE Aero Design West Competition

11 June 1998

University of Akron Sweeps SAE Aero Design West Competition

    WARRENDALE, Pa., June 10 -- The University of Akron repeated
as the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) Aero Design West champion this
weekend in Long Beach, California, recording a total score of 202.90.
    The Ohio team's radio-controlled aircraft lifted more than 27 pounds,
barely edging out a strong team from Warsaw (Poland) University of Technology
that finished second with 192.33 points.
    Each of 27 teams in the competition designed and built a radio-controlled
aircraft that is capable of carrying a payload of 10-30 pounds over a circular
flight path, taking off and landing within a prescribed distance.
    A similar competition, Aero Design East, held in Daytona Beach, Florida in
April, was won by Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University of Daytona Beach.
    Akron also won the award for best design and best flight, while the U.S.
Air Force Academy, Colorado Springs, Colorado, got the prize for best crash.

    Aero Design West Top Ten

    1.  University of Akron, Akron, Ohio                      202.90
    2.  Warsaw University of Technology, Warsaw, Poland       192.33
    3.  University of California at Davis                     190.32
    4.  University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada 181.51
    5.  Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal, Quebec, Canada       174.48
    6.  University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah              132.69
    7.  Rice University, Houston, Texas                       130.78
    8.  University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada    129.66
    9.  University of California - Santa Barbara, California  125.94
    10. California State University - Los Angeles, California 122.20

    SAE is a non-profit educational and scientific organization dedicated to
the advancement of mobility technology to better serve humanity.  More than
74,000 engineers and scientists who are SAE members develop technical
information on all forms of self-propelled vehicles including automobiles,
trucks and buses, off-highway equipment, aircraft, aerospace vehicles, marine,
rail, and transit system.  SAE disseminates this information through its
meetings, books, technical papers, magazines, standards, reports, continuing
education programs, and electronic data bases.