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HIGH SCHOOL COMPETITION

High School Division

2010 Challenge

Environmentally Responsible (Green) Aviation High School Student Challenge

NASA invites students to propose ideas and designs for future aircraft that use less fuel, produce less harmful emissions, and make less noise.

Background

In order to engage and inspire the next generation of engineers and scientists, NASA offers technical challenges for both high school and college level students in the area of environmentally responsible aviation. These challenges are open to both US citizens and foreign students.

Today's current generation of aircraft benefit from past NASA investments in aeronautical research that have improved fuel efficiencies, lowered noise levels and lessened harmful emissions. Although substantial progress has been made, much more needs to be done. The nation’s air transportation system will continue to expand by an average of two to three percent per year over the next couple of decades, potentially increasing aviation's contribution to climate change. Therefore, the next generation of environmentally responsible airliners should have lower noise, lower emissions, and less fuel burn than today’s aircraft.

The NASA Environmentally Responsible Aviation (ERA) project explores and documents the feasibility, benefits, and technical risks associated with vehicle concepts and enabling technologies that will help mitigate the impact of aviation on the environment. Through system-level analysis, promising vehicle and propulsion concepts and technologies will be developed based on their potential benefit toward simultaneously achieving fuel burn, noise and emissions metrics as shown in the green outlined area of the table below (N+2, 2020 timeframe). Students are invited to submit their ideas and designs for vehicle or propulsion concepts and technologies that will assist in meeting the N+2 goals. Those include:

  • Non-conventional aircraft architectures that enable simultaneous achievement of noise, Landing Take Off (LTO) NOx and fuel burn metrics in the N+2 timeframe
  • Drag reduction through laminar flow
  • Advanced propulsion architectures (open rotor, geared and direct drive turbofans)
  • Advanced composite structural concepts for weight reduction
  • Low NOx, fuel-flexible combustors
  • Propulsion and airframe integration for noise reduction and fuel burn improvements

ChartA challenge suitable for each of three levels of students is presented below.

High School Students—Teams or Individuals

Two options to enter: May 1, 2010 or December 15, 2010

Write a well-documented essay to describe your ideas for a large commercial air transport vehicle (200 passenger minimum) that will incorporate advanced materials, advanced propulsion systems, including unconventional architectures, non-conventional aircraft designs, produce less harmful emissions, less noise, and greater fuel efficiency than commercial passenger vehicles used in today’s aviation industry.

Together with your essay, provide a one-minute video to describe your best idea. The video will count as ten percent of your overall score.

Submission & Evaluation for high school level entries

Submission and format requirements will be posted soon. NASA personnel will evaluate the papers and videos against a set of criteria including: creativity, credible resources, organization and clarity. A set of detailed criteria and point values for both essays and videos will be posted to the contest web site soon.

Eligibility & Awards for high school students or teams

All competitors should be full time students at an accredited institution of secondary education. Foreign students are invited to enter but are not eligible for financial awards. Through a NASA cooperative agreement with a Virginia-based university, US citizens may win cash awards; non-citizens may win trophies and certificates. The winning student or team of students may be invited to display their video at a NASA sponsored event.

Free Pro/ENGINEER Software License from Parametric Technology Corporation.
A free license or seat of Pro/ENGINEER Schools Edition 3-D Computer Aided
Design (CAD) software is available to all students that enter the contest. 
Parametric Technology Corporation (PTC) manufactures the software and will
provide one license to each university student that declares a entry to the
contest.  The corporation has made this offer in the hopes of improving
student’s ability to use the program, thus improving the engineering skill
set of the future workforce.    Please note:  The use of Pro/ENGINEER is not
required for contest participation, nor is NASA endorsing the software or
its manufacturer.

Click here for details.


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