NJIT Graduate Student Chapter of AIAA Hosts Glider Building Event and Competition

The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) NJIT Graduate Chapter, in conjunction with the Northern New Jersey Section of the AIAA, recently hosted a two-day glider building event and competition at New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT). The AIAA Glider Building Challenge was the first event of this kind held on the NJIT campus and was aimed at stimulating the creative skills and ingenuity of graduate and undergraduate students. 

Teams consisting of a maximum of two students or individuals were allowed to enter the competition and prizes were awarded for the best glider design and the glider traveling the longest distance.  A total of 11 gliders were built by eight individual participants and three teams. 

The winning glider for the design portion of the competition was built by Gustavo Alvarez, of Elizabeth, and Toha Poveda, of Hackensack, both mechanical engineering graduate students at NJIT.  The runner-up in the design challenge was Nellone Reid, of Brooklyn, NY, a chemical engineering graduate student.  Alvarez and Poveda also had the glider that traveled the longest distance, with second place awarded to Kevin Nyamangorora, East Orange, a mechanical engineering graduate student. 

The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) is the world's largest technical society dedicated to the global aerospace profession.  For more information on the AIAA Glider Building Challenge, visit http://www.aiaa.org/SecondaryTwoColumn.aspx?id=19847.