Aracuã AerodesignThe competition
What is SAE Brazil AeroDesign
The competition we design, build and fly a new aircraft for every year.
The challenge
Designing an aircraft to carry as much cargo as possible
AeroDesign was born in the United States, created by SAE International, and since 1999 it has also been part of SAE Brazil's calendar of student competitions. Over the years it has become one of the country's biggest university aeronautical engineering competitions, with technical requirements that only get tougher each year.
Each team designs, builds and flies an unmanned, radio-controlled cargo aircraft, trying to lift as much weight as possible within the dimension, structural and safety limits set by the rules. It's not the prettiest aircraft that wins, but the team that truly understands its own numbers: teams declare, before flying, how much weight they plan to carry, and are judged on how closely they hit that prediction — as much as on how much they carry.
It's this mix of multidisciplinary design, teamwork and real flight practice that shapes the engineers who pass through Aracuã — the competition's stated goal has always been professional training, not just runway results.
Categories
Not every aircraft competes the same way
The competition is split into three classes, each with its own rules, eligibility and engineering challenge.
Where Aracuã competes
Regular Class
The most traditional and most crowded category in the competition. Open to undergraduate students, with a single-engine electric aircraft. Scores whoever carries the most weight relative to the aircraft's empty weight and, above all, whoever most precisely predicts the payload they declared before flying — prediction engineering as much as structural engineering.
- Eligibility
- Undergraduate
- Propulsion
- Single electric motor
- Max. wingspan
- 4 m
- Max. power
- 600 W
Onboard systems
Advanced Class
Also open to graduate students, allows multi-engine aircraft and adds an extra challenge: most teams carry and release, mid-flight, an unmanned glider that has to navigate on its own to a target on the ground using GPS and telemetry — aerospace engineering and embedded electronics in the same project.
- Eligibility
- Undergraduate and graduate
- Propulsion
- Multi-engine electric
- Extra challenge
- Autonomous in-flight glider
- Glider navigation
- GPS + telemetry
Compact scale
Micro Class
Much smaller aircraft, carrying two types of payload on the same flight: PET bottles filled with water and an extra payload released mid-air by parachute — the so-called LAPES payload. Same spirit of designing, building and flying, at a different scale.
- Eligibility
- Undergraduate
- Max. wingspan
- 1.8 m
- Liquid payload
- PET bottles with water
- Extra payload
- Parachute extraction (LAPES)
Want to see it in action?
Meet the aircraft we've already flown for Aracuã Aerodesign, season after season.