Colorado Design Build Fly is CU Boulder's student-run competition team. Each season we design, build and fly a new remote-controlled aircraft for the AIAA Design/Build/Fly competition, against university teams from around the world.
A competition club. Every year there are **new rules, new requirements, a new design and a new plane.** We read the rules in August and fly the result in April.
Colorado Design Build Fly is a student-run engineering team at the University of Colorado Boulder. Each season the team designs, analyses, manufactures, tests and flies a purpose-built aircraft for AIAA Design/Build/Fly. Members come from aerospace, mechanical and plenty of other majors, first year through graduating senior, and most arrive with no RC experience at all.
Competition flight line
Seniors down to sophomores, aerospace and mechanical, all of them happy to talk to you about joining. Most were new members a year ago.
SeanProject Manager
IanChief Engineer
AadhitTreasurer and Chief Financial Officer
DamienAerodynamics Lead
JayAerodynamics and Documentation Lead
JustinStructures Lead
RyanStructures and Mission Lead
KareemAvionics and Telemetry Lead
DarielManufacturing Lead
TylerIntegration and Fabrication Lead
DinukaTesting LeadEverything we build is designed, built and test-flown in Boulder, Colorado, at 5,430 feet. The air here is roughly 15 percent thinner than at sea level, so every wing has to make more lift and every propeller has to work harder. When the aircraft flies in Tucson or Wichita, it has already been proven somewhere harder.
Wichita, 2012 · 3rd placeCompetition motivates us, but the point is bigger than a winning plane. DBF is a hands-on environment where students apply what they learn, work in teams and solve practical problems with real hardware.
Lifting surfaces, aircraft dynamics and propulsion. Airfoil selection, sizing, stability and control, and the mission simulation.
The airframe, sized for weight and serviceability, plus the payload bays and mechanisms that score points.
Flight-test data logging, real-time telemetry, wiring, PCB design and control of every moving part on the aircraft.
Foam prototypes, laser-cut and 3D-printed parts, carbon layups, integration and fabrication.
Bench checks, load tests, propulsion runs and the flight test campaign that feeds every design revision.
Program spending, sponsor relationships, external funding and the team's public presence.
No experience required. First years through graduating seniors, engineering or not.
2025 to 2026 aircraft
Rules drop in late summer. From there it is mission analysis, a proposal, preliminary and critical design reviews, a written report, manufacturing, ground test and flight test, with results fed straight back into the next revision.
Funded by engineering student fees, the EEF backs student projects and organizations across the college. For Colorado DBF it is the foundation of each season's budget, from airframe materials to the trip to the fly-off.
About the EEF
Boom is building Overture, a supersonic airliner, a short drive from campus, and its XB-1 demonstrator broke the sound barrier in January 2025. A Colorado aerospace company backing the next generation of Colorado aerospace engineers.
Visit Boom
Atlas designs and builds brushless DC motors and actuators for drones and robots, engineered around each customer's program and manufactured at scale. Electric propulsion is the heart of every DBF aircraft, so having a motor company in our corner matters.
Visit Atlas Motion
Complete the form, come to a Sunday meeting, or reach out to a lead. New members are welcome at any point in the season.
