Design it. Build it. Fly it.
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
Eleven student leads, one aircraft
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 LeadDesigned a mile up, in the shadow of the Flatirons
Everything 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.
- CU Boulder · home of the Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences, ranked eighth in the nation for graduate aerospace engineering by U.S. News in 2026, with nineteen CU affiliates who have flown as NASA astronauts
- Colorado · more aerospace jobs per capita than any other state, which is where a lot of our alumni end up
- Since 2003 · CU Boulder aircraft with Buffalo names, from Water Buffalo and Buffalo Wings to H2BuffalO and Ralphie's Revenge
- Wichita, 2012 · third place overall with H2BuffalO, the team's best finish at the AIAA fly-off
Wichita, 2012 · 3rd placeWhere classroom theory meets real deadlines
Competition 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.
Aerodynamics
Lifting surfaces, aircraft dynamics and propulsion. Airfoil selection, sizing, stability and control, and the mission simulation.
Structures & Mission
The airframe, sized for weight and serviceability, plus the payload bays and mechanisms that score points.
Avionics & Telemetry
Flight-test data logging, real-time telemetry, wiring, PCB design and control of every moving part on the aircraft.
Manufacturing
Foam prototypes, laser-cut and 3D-printed parts, carbon layups, integration, fabrication and the flight test campaign.
Finance & Outreach
Program spending, sponsor relationships, external funding and the team's public presence.
Find your place on the team
No experience required. First years through graduating seniors, engineering or not.
2025 to 2026 aircraft
One aircraft. Eight months. Every stage reviewed.
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.
- Late August · info meeting, foam prototype workshops, rules release
- October · proposal due, preliminary design review
- December to February · critical design review, build, design report
- February to April · flight test, refine, compete
Backed by people who believe in student engineers
Ready to learn to fly, together?
Complete the form, come to a Sunday meeting, or reach out to a lead. New members are welcome at any point in the season.