#65 - Aero-CE

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  It has a light mode too!

What it does

Aero-CE is a wind tunnel simulation that calculates aerodynamic forces acting on a two dimensional body. This program runs on a Ti-84 + CE graphing calculator, allowing it to provide additional educational opportunities to students. In Aero-CE the user can use the calculator's buttons to alter various parameters of the wind tunnel. Parameters such as wind speed, wind direction, air density, and even the shape of the object can all be changed by the user. The information is also displayed back to them. This lets them explore how air interacts with objects in different ways.

How we built it

Aero-CE was built purely in C where, our team used basic libraries for the ti-84 plus ce which worked to access key presses, and draw to the screen. There was no use of any physics libraries and all the code/calculations were written from scratch. These limitations are mostly due to the very weak computational power of the ti-84, so efficiency was paramount in the structure of the project. Also, learning about aerodynamic simulations and force calculations was very knowledgable, so implementing them outselves aloowed for a valueble learning opprotunity.

Challenges we ran into

The Ti-84 calculator is very limiting in terms of computational power and libraries. We had to make sure that we optimized every calculation in our code to ensure that it ran smoothly on the calculator. We ran into issue like this multiple times, causing the simulation rate to decrease. We were eventually able to optimize and make it run at good, smooth pace.
This is also our first time dealing with aerodynamics as a physics topic. It was pretty difficult to make sure we had our equations in check and our calculations accurate. We were fortunately, and though a lot of thinking, able to figure out how to do these, and have accurate simulations.

Inspiration

Our team is comprised of just two highschool students and through our love for progrmming and airplanes we decided to make an educational wind tunnel simulation. We use our ti-84's everyday in calculus, trigonometry and more, so when deciding how we could spread the project to people who might not have a laptop or computer the calculator was an easy choice. Beyond that our inspiration as highschool students is really propelled by our love for learning and diving into projects that might seem daunting or straight up impossible. Either way, our passion and drive definintely allowed us to succeed in the creation of this project.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Aerodynamics is not easy, and figuring it out for the first time on our own was quite the task. While we struggled at first our initial project structure allowed us to visit multiple ways of computing lift, drag, and net force to find the optimal path. Through this, we quickly identified our faults and successfully implemented the aerodynamic calculations.

What we learned

As said, aerodynamics is not simple at first look and our team went through lots of papers and websites to select the appropriate formulas for our use case. Through this proccess we were exposed to many aspects of aerospace engineering, fluid dynamics, and aircraft design. We learned all about ideal airfoils at differing speeds, drag coefficients for different shapes, and much more. Hopefully we have passed on some of that knowledge and inspiration to our users of Aero-CE.

What's next for Aero-CE

We want to make sure Aero-CE can provide maximum educational value to its users. To do this, we are planning on allowing the user to create their own 2d objects through the program, and see how air interacts with them. We are also going to try and make the visuals of the simulation have more features. Things such as pressure gradients and airflow lines could enhance the user experience.

Built With

• c