AEROFAIR 2015 Video

We have produced a short video about the AEROFAIR 2015 event, and uploaded it on YouTube at our Aerospace Eng.USM Channel. Scenes from the video include the workshop session to build indoor planes in the morning, and the competition session in the afternoon. Still images of the winners, the participants from schools in Pulau Pinang, and the organizers (staffs and students from SAE) are shown at the end of the video.

Thanks to Koh Wei Chong, our 3rd year student at the School of Aerospace Engineering (SAE) USM, for the design and the editing of the video.



You can read more about AEROFAIR 2015 in this post. A report about the event and a module on the theory and construction of an indoor plane are also available.

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A Module on Indoor Flight

As a follow-up to the AEROFAIR 2015 outreach event in April 2015, we have produced a document titled "A Module on Indoor Flight: Basic Theory, Instruction Manual, and Event Organisation".

This module describes an outreach program on indoor flight for secondary school students and organizers of outreach programs. Its objective is to promote the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) through hands-on activities related to aerospace engineering.

The module introduces indoor flight briefly and describes the need to promote STEM education in Malaysia. It contains three main sections: (1) basic principles of flight, (2) an instruction manual to build an indoor airplane, and (3) guidelines to organize an indoor flight event.

Indoor flight offers a number of advantages as an outreach program: inexpensive materials, simple construction techniques, numerous resources, practice aspects, and promoting HOTS (Higher Order Thinking Skills).

The Table of Contents below summarizes the 3 parts of the module:

You can download the PDF file of the manual here. You can also download the AEROFAIR 2015 Final Report here.

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AEROFAIR 2015: Post-Event

AEROFAIR 2015 has finally come to an end. The main event day of AEROFAIR 2015 was successfully conducted on Saturday, 25 April 2015. We received a full attendance of all 42 teams who applied to participate in our program. These teams consisted of 210 students and 35 teachers from 26 secondary schools in Pulau Pinang.

Above is the group photo of all the participants and the AEROFAIR staffs and volunteers taken in the morning at the start of the program.

Highlights of the main event of the program can be read in these posts:

1. Competition Winners and Photos
2. Workshop Activities and Photos
3. Competition Activities and Photos
4. Final Report

Other information on the program can be read in these posts:

1. Welcoming Page for AEROFAIR 2015
2. Objectives and Benefits of the Program
3. Brief Introduction on Indoor Flight
4. Indoor Flight Workshop
5. Rules of the Flight Competition

You can also read about the AEROFAIR 2015 program in the USM Engineering Campus Website.

Group photo of the AEROFAIR staffs and students taken in the evening after the completion of the program.

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AEROFAIR 2015: Winners

The results from this year’s indoor flight competition showed much improvement from last year’s competition. The record of the flight time in this event was 1 minute 14 seconds, a drastic improvement from the previous year’s record of less than 20 seconds. Much of the improvement was due to our approach in preparing the learning modules and conducting the workshop session this year.

The winners of the flight competitions were:

1. SMK Permatang Tok Jaya (A)
2. SMK Tasek
3. SMK Seri Nibong (B)
4. SMK Datuk Onn (B)
5. MRSM Kepala Batas (A)
6. SMK Bukit Mertajam (A)

In the First Round competition of AEROFAIR 2015, 3 teams passed the 1-minute flight time with a maximum time of 1 minute 14 seconds attained by SMK Tasek. SMK Permatang Tok Jaya (A) had the second best time of 1 minute 12 seconds, followed by SMK Seri Nibong (B) with a flight time of 1 minute 10 seconds. 7 other teams flew past 40 seconds, and another 7 teams flew past 20 seconds. Highlights and photos during the competition can be read in this post.

The face-to-face Final Round was held between SMK Tasek and SMK Permatang Tok Jaya (A). Both teams released their planes at the same time. SMK Permatang Tok Jaya (A) won the competition in the Final Round with a flight time of 1 minute 5 seconds using 850 rubber-band turns, beating SMK Tasek with a flight time of 53 seconds.

SMK Permatang Tok Jaya (A), as the overall winner, received a remote-controlled Hexacopter PathFinder 2 W609, complete with a First-Person-View camera and a screen, priced at about RM650. In addition, the top 3 winners received a trophy each. All winners were awarded a medal and a winning certificate. Photos of the 6 winning teams, with Dr. Farzad from the School of Aerospace Engineering USM presenting the awards, are shown above.

We observed that the planes of some of the other teams flew well during their flight tests, but unfortunately crashed onto the walls or other obstacles. Subsequent flights from these teams did not produce good results even after fixing the broken or fractured parts.

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AEROFAIR 2015: Workshop

The main activities of the AEROFAIR 2015 program was the workshop and the competition, held in the Dewan Utama (DU) of the USM Engineering Campus. We received full attendance from all the participants. We also sent formal invitations to relevant institutions to officiate our program: these are the (1) Unit Ko-Kurikulum, Jabatan Pendidikan Pulau Pinang, (2) Penang Education Council, (3) Pejabat Pendidikan Daerah (PPD) Seberang Perai Selatan, and (4) Pejabat Pengarah, USM Engineering Campus.

The DU was sectioned into 6 areas for AEROFAIR 2015, 5 of which were arranged in the morning to place the workshop stations for indoor plane parts constructions and another one for the main sitting area during the opening ceremony. These workshop stations were cleared out in the afternoon session to carry out the flight competition. The photos below - taken during the workshop session - show the arrangement of these stations and the learning activities taken place (facilitated by our staff and student volunteers).

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