This week, we made strides in developing our presentation skills and advancing key project decisions. After finalizing the details and designs for our PDR, we presented our slide deck to a group of peers on Tuesday. This presentation gave us an opportunity to practice effective communication and receive feedback. We look forward to using the valuable insights we gathered to prepare for our final PDR presentation, which will be given to GE Aerospace.

Building on our task of concept selection from previous weeks, we worked to determine a group of optimal designs for further CFD testing and eventual manufacturing. We used decision matrices to compare the independent variables in our wind tunnel test section plate designs. However, certain factor combinations may not be practical to manufacture, so we will investigate our manufacturing capabilities and create a manufacturing plan in the coming week.

We also conducted further research into the limitations of our wind tunnel test environment, as discussed in Week 5. It appears we will likely need an external low-pressure environment, generated using a vacuum pump, to control the pressures in the test environment. In the coming week, we will continue our research and develop concepts for this test configuration in our lab.

Due to Hurricane Milton, UF operations were halted mid-week. Although this slowed some of our progress, we still managed to make significant strides and look forward to starting next week with renewed momentum.