
AIAA provides students at Rice with both academic and practical challenges that no course, and no other student organization, offers. We provide Rice students with aerospace design experiences to develop both technical and leadership skills, and we hope to encourage Rice to expand its aerospace education offerings so that students interested in the future of airplane design can begin formal studies as undergraduates. Last year, as the Rice Flight competition team, we competed in the international 2025 SAE Aero Design Advanced competition, and won third place for our design. This academic year, we are aiming to improve on this strong performance in the 2026 competition.
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Aircraft Design |
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For this competition, we are required to build an aircraft to deliver and recover payloads, and be capable of fully autonomous horizontal and vertical takeoff. Our aircraft uses advanced real-time-kinematic GPS sensors and inertial measurement units (IMUs) to position itself, and we wrote custom Multi-disciplinary Design Optimization (MDO) software using ANSYS Fluent and MATLAB to optimize the aircraft's aerodynamic performance. |
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Autonomous Robotic Payloads |
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In addition to the aircraft, we are also designing mobile payloads which use LiDAR sensors to localize themselves and can wirelessly communicate with the aircraft to coordinate operations. |
Rice Flight’s projects aren’t cheap, and we depend on sponsors to afford building materials, competition fees, and other attendance costs like transportation. We have several tiers of sponsorship, which, along with more information about the team, are explained in our sponsorship packet at http://aiaa.rice.edu/support-us. We are incredibly grateful for any contributions, and if you would like any additional information about what you would be directly supporting, please feel free to reach out to us at aiaaricechapter@gmail.com.
If you are interested in discussing how you can make a more significant impact on AIAA Rice and its projects through your current or long-term philanthropy, or to make a gift through appreciated securities, wire transfer, Donor Advised Fund (DAF), IRA Charitable Rollover, or through a deferred gift vehicle such as a bequest, please contact Katie Donovan at (713) 348-4612 or katiedonovan@rice.edu or Sara L. Rice, Executive Director of Development for Schools, at slrice@rice.edu or 713-348-3189.
Sponsorship Amounts:
- Glider - $500
- Rotorcraft - $1,000
- Fixed Wing - $2,500
- Spaceplane - $5,000