EMBASSY EVENTS 2009

Polish Engineers Participate in Lockheed Martin’s “Aero Design” Contest

6 March 2009

Students with the  Czopun

Four young engineers from Politechnika Wrocławska competed in the prestigious “Aero Design” 2009 contest taking place in Van Nuys, CA on March 6-8. The students, Artur Zolich, Przemysław Tomków, Tomasz Prokop, and Dawid Kostrzewa had merely 61 days to complete their project and constructed a 4-kg (8.8 lb) airplane they called “Czopun” which can transport cargo more than double its own weight: up to 9 kilograms (20 lb)!  In the contest, organized by the Maryland-based Lockheed Martin, one of the world’s largest multinational aerospace manufacturer, the Poles on the “Jet Streem” team will compete against 56 teams from across the globe, only three of them representing Europe, interestingly all three from Poland.  Students compete for the title of “The Best Aero Design Team.”  The challenge is to design an aircraft with the lowest ratio of aircraft weight to the weight of cargo it can transport.