In the fall of 2018 I was selected along with eleven other students in my Senior Engineering class to work on building a Vans RV-12 Light Weight Aircraft. An RV-12 is a small airplane with a single engine that seats two people. This project would not have been possible without the help from our mentors which are a part of the Gnoss Field Community Association (GFCA) and the local Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA). They volunteer their time to come into our class each day to help guide us through the building. Many of them have built RV-12's of their own.
This project began in the fall of 2016 with the first STEM senior engineering class. Ever since then, select individuals from the senior engineering class pick up where the previous classes left off. When my class began working, the fuselage, tail cone, and horizontal and vertical stabilizers had been completed. Our main task was to complete the left and right wings as well as do a little more work on the fuselage. Future senior engineering classes will be responsible for completing all the electrical wiring, attaching the engine and painting the plane. Below is a link to the official Project Pegasus website.
Below you can find the links to the photo documentation of our progress as well as my status updates document. You will find detailed descriptions of what sections have been completed this year and what had to be done to complete those sections.
Below are photos of the plane during our project presentation night:
I am so grateful to have been selected as one of the 12 students in my class to be able to work on this project. This was truly a once in a lifetime opportunity and I never imagined that I would be able to spend my senior year building an airplane. I gained so many valuable skills and learned many things that I wouldn't have learned if I was not building a plane. During this project it felt as if I were working with a team of engineers on a project in the real world. We learned how to read and comprehend complicated construction drawings and blueprints. We utilized our team work and communication skills that we have been gaining over the past four years in the STEM program everyday while working on this project. Working as a team was a critical aspect of this project, no only with our peers, but with the many mentors as well. We also got exposed to so many unique tools such as pivot guns, deburring tools, dremel tool, countersink etc.
Overall this was by far the best project that I have worked on during my time in the STEM Marin program. It was the perfect project to end my high school career.