High Speed Aircraft Design Project Report Reflection Paper 3 (minimum 750 words; no maximum) Philosophers of Technology have often argued that technologi

High Speed Aircraft Design Project Report Reflection Paper 3

(minimum 750 words; no maximum)

Philosophers of Technology have often argued that technologies are value-laden rather than being merely value-neutral. One reason for thinking so is because the act of building or making always presupposes value-judgments about what we think is worth building or making in the first place. Put another way, what we make or build often reveals what we think is worth doing: making and building reveal what we take to be a problem, and whether that problem is worth solving.

In Paper 2, you wrote about how introducing new technologies into different cultures require their people to adapt or change their lifestyles, including the sphere of life we might call the political (that is, how and where they work, how they think, how they live, how they form organizations and institutions, etc.). In Paper 3, you will do the same kind of analysis but with your senior project in mind.

Give an account of your own values infrastructures (see the reading by Cook) that explain your intentions behind the design of your senior project. See the Rokeach Values Survey and Hall-Tonna Values Inventory for examples of values. Assume that your senior design project is going to be adopted in a country outside the US and Canada. Consider the potential for conflict at the level of differing values infrastructures between you as a designer and the adopting population as end users.

In your write up, be sure to:

1. Describe what you are building for your senior project.

2. Explain: why you are making it?; how are you making it?; for whom are you making it?

3. Assume that your design will be adopted in a country outside the US and Canada. Pick one country only.

4. Give an account of your own values infrastructures that best explain your intentions behind your senior project. Consider the intentions behind your design and the intentions of your targeted end users. Can you anticipate or foresee unintentional consequences in your design? Can you foresee whether your design will be used ethically or unethically? Are there any ways you would not want your design to be used at all?

Grading

Write an essay that addresses the questions above. When you respond to these questions, you should be specific and cite specific details from the readings, class lectures, and your own research. You may provide references from your own research, but only in addition to material provided by the course. Also, you MUST make sure to cite your sources in your response and include a reference list at the end of your essay. Citations must be from reputable sources. Sites like Wikipedia, about.com, etc. are NOT considered acceptable sources.

Higher credit will be given for responses that show evidence of a systematic and comprehensive understanding of the topics involved.

You are encouraged to review the rubric for this assignment and make sure that you answer each question in detail and with specifics.

Correct use of English is a fundamental requirement for your papers to be graded. If errors in English make it difficult for a grader to understand your sentences, or excessively slow down the grader to mark your technical errors, your paper will be returned to you for further work on its English, and your grade for the paper will be deferred until it is resubmitted with corrected English. If your assignment is returned for an excessive number of grammatical errors, you will be allowed to rewrite and resubmit it within two weeks of the original return date. If not resubmitted by the date set by your instructor, you will receive a zero (0) for the writing assignment.

Formatting

Standard font, preferably Arial in either 11pt or 12pt.

MLA, APA, or any other format is acceptable provided that it is consistent through the entire paper. Please, no cover sheets.

In our senior project: We designed and built an aircraft that could have high cruise speed and swift aerodynamic performance. The goal for this project was to make an aircraft that could fly at 70mph at cruising altitudes. It could provide a feasible concept for the future development of high-speed aircraft. We built a high-speed plane kind of just for fun and never think how about these questions like “why you are making it? how are you making it? for whom are you making it?”. So you can write anything reasonable.

Here are lecture slides for this reflection paper and also our senior project report for reference. Overview.
? Cook on “Design and Responsibility”
? Concept of “Values Infrastructures”
? Mobile Technology and its In?uence
? Uber, Lyft, and the Taxi Industry
Recall: Winner’s Theory of Technological Politics
Winner argues that the TTP is the best way to account for the relationship between ethics and technology.
Technological artifacts
are designed from within
speci?c socio-economic
political relationships.
Socio-economic political
relationships are later
in?uenced by the
technological artifacts
that come into existence.
And this dynamic continues on, from generation to generation….
Cook on “Design and Responsibility”
“Design is the imposition of human purpose onto nature. What results is neither human nor
natural, but something that exists in a world of its own, where form and function cannot be
explained solely in human or natural terms.” (259)
“None of the artifacts that make up this world function in isolation. …every artifact is
suspended in a network of social relations that brought it about, see it to use, compass its
ultimate disposal and, importantly, link it to other artifacts.” (260)
Cook describes our dwelling, our places of being, as a socio-technical system. We rely on
this sort of system to not only use different technologies which suit ours and others’ needs,
but also to create new opportunities for living in, relating to, and creating our world.
What makes something technological?
Natural Systems
Artifactual Systems
Human Systems
What makes something technological?
Natural Systems: “Systems whose activities can be explained by appeal to natural factors”
(261).
Example: Jungles
Human Systems: The sources of our human values, “aesthetic, moral or both” (261).
Examples: Horticulture, landscape design, aesthetic principles, taste, etc.
Artifactual Systems: Systems whose activities “cannot be explained solely by appeal to the
workings of nature. It is a human creation…upon which a design of uniquely human origin
has been imposed” (262).
Example: Gardens
What makes something technological?
Natural Systems
Jungles
Artifactual Systems
Gardens
Human Systems
Desire for Order,
Aesthetic Design,
Horticulture, etc.
What makes something technological?
Artifactual systems are a combination of human systems and natural systems.
? Once an artifactual system is in place, it too can in?uence and be in?uenced by the
other systems.
? e.g., cities, buildings, roads, freeways, cars, bicycles, pedestrians, etc.
? Cities are built by imposing human design on nature, and in turn, cities in?uence our
way of life, our cultures, and our values.
? Artifactual Systems ?? Human Systems, e.g., values about accessibility,
cleanliness, convenience, e?ciency….
? Natural systems, in turn, also in?uence our cities once they’ve been established.
? Natural Systems ?? Artifactual Systems, e.g., weather, natural disasters,
erosion, wear….
Ethics and Technology
?
What is the relationship between ethics and technology?
“Human systems entail those standards that give form and direction to human activity,
particularly, our aesthetic and moral values; they are unique among systems in that they
have an axiological dimension. The actions we take and the choices we make re?ect our
values. They can also be seen in what we do with respect to all three kinds of systems.
How we shape or despoil nature, what artifacts we decide to create and how we design
and use them, and the ways we treat one another all testify to what we consider worth
doing and which ways of doing them we ?nd appealing or desirable.” (263)
Values and Design
Cook’s argument pp. 260 – 261
(1)
(2)
?
(3)
“No design can be explained solely by appeal to its functions, intended or otherwise, … “
(a) “… because a given set of functions can always be achieved by more than one design.”
“Along with function, the design of an artifact must be explained in terms of explicit or
implicit value choices made by its designer.”
(a) “…the mere fact that an artifact exists suggests that someone made the value
judgement that it was worth having in the ?rst place.”
(b) “Such values can be aesthetic, moral or both. But they are always part of design.”
______________________________________________________________________________________
So, the mixing of human purpose with the stuff of nature results in artifacts that necessarily
re?ect the intentions and values of their makers.”
Values Infrastructures
(3) “So, the mixing of human purpose with the stuff of nature results in artifacts
that necessarily re?ect the intentions and values of their makers.”
Cook introduces the concept of “values infrastructures” to capture this idea.
“Just as natural systems can, and artifactual systems should, afford the
purposes of human systems, human systems have what I call ‘values
infrastructures’ that inform the way we treat nature and how we design artifacts.”
Values Infrastructures
“A values infrastructure is made out of what is valuable to individuals and groups
about themselves, the physical and social spaces within which they live and
work; the various means that they employ to do what they do, and so on.”
“What is valuable to you plays a signi?cant role in what you consider worth doing,
how you like to see it done, with whom you choose to associate, what goals you
think are worth striving for, etc. What we ?nd valuable shapes what we do. That
is, the design of a community’s artifacts both embodies and affords the
expression of the values to be found in its values infrastructure.”
Example: Virtual Reality Of?ce
Case Study: High-tech research and development lab. (266-268)
?
?
?
Created an early computer conferencing application, a VR o?ce.
“The team leader decided early on that the application should be designed to be as
?exible as possible. … He gave maximization of ?exibility as a reason for the team’s
design choices at various levels of the application.” (267)
? User interface (UI), the architecture of the software, the writing of the code…
? Flexibility, User Empowerment, and Workplace Democracy as values guiding the
work ? Team lead’s “values infrastructure”.
“He and his team literally built these values into the technology. I mean ‘literally’ in that
one could not explain why the application had certain characteristics that it did
without reference to those values.” (267)
Example: Virtual Reality Of?ce
Case Study: High-tech research and development lab. (266-268)
?
?
?
?
Admin staff beta tested the virtual o?ce application.
Once installed, they didn’t use it. “[The] admins took almost no advantage of the
?exibility that the project team…put into the design of the system.” (267)
Admin staff claimed they couldn’t make sense out of con?guring their VR o?ce, and
that they felt “abandoned”. They wanted to feel supported.
? Feeling included, feeling supported ? Admin staff’s “values infrastructure”.
“What was intended as democratic empowerment was taken as abandonment. So,
the problem encountered in testing [the app’s] design was not technological so much
as it was axiological.” (267)
Values Infrastructures
“In untangling the problem, recon?guring the functions of the application alone
would not very likely address the situation because the criteria against which it
was designed in the ?rst place were not functions but values. Since the problem
rested with the clashing values infrastructures of the two interconnected human
systems, it is there that a criteria for a ?x were to be found.” (267)
Mobile Technology and its In?uence
The rise of TNCs (Transportation Network Company)
–
US/North America: Uber (2009), Lyft (2012)
China: DiDi Chuxing (2012)
Also called, “peer-to-peer ridesharing”, “ride-hailing”, etc.
In our current economic environment, we see time and again attempts to
“disrupt” a traditional industry, often through the introduction of a new
technology, or the use of existing technologies brought together in novel ways.
Technologies and Disruption
Uber, Lyft, and the Taxi Industry
?
?
?
Uber and Lyft do not de?ne themselves as a taxi or livery service. Instead,
the classify themselves as technology companies that provide access to a
rideshare service.
As such, Uber and Lyft are not required to follow the same kind of regulation
that traditional taxi services are legally required to follow.
Globally, Uber has been met with resistance where workers’ unions or
government regulations are particularly strong. E.g., Germany, France, China.
Technologies and Disruption
Uber, Lyft, and the Taxi Industry
?
Taxi drivers are required by law to have insurance as commercial vehicles.
?
It’s often the case that Uber and Lyft drivers do not inform their personal
insurance providers that they are using their personal vehicles as
commercial vehicles. But this is fraudulent behavior.
?
All taxi drivers are required to take criminal background checks. This has
only recently been adopted by Uber and Lyft.
Technologies and Disruption
Uber, Lyft, and the Taxi Industry
How have rideshares affected the taxi industry?
?
By de?ning themselves as “technology companies”, Uber and Lyft have
avoided government regulations and safety requirements that the Taxi
Industry is required to follow. This creates an unfair competitive advantage
to companies like Uber and Lyft.
Technologies and Disruption
Circumventing regulation: Uber created an in-house platform called “Greyball” in
order to blacklist local authorities. Used in Portland, Or. until 2017.
http://www.thedrive.com/tech/14364/uber-used-greyball-software-to-evade-16-government-o?cials-portland-probe-?nds
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-uber-portland/portland-probe-?nds-uber-used-software-to-evade-16-government-o?c
ials-idUSKCN1BQ08Z
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/09/heres-a-real-life-slimy-example-of-ubers-regulator-evading-software/
https://gizmodo.com/ubers-secret-app-for-tracking-cops-sounds-creepy-as-hel-1792949962
Technologies and Disruption
Uber, Lyft, and the Taxi Industry
How have rideshares affected the taxi industry?
?
SF’s Yellow Cab ?led for bankruptcy protection in 2016.
?
?
http://www.sfexaminer.com/yellow-cab-to-?le-for-bankruptcy/
Many former taxi drivers have left their companies to drive for Uber and Lyft.
?
https://uberpeople.net/
Technologies and Disruption
Uber, Lyft, and the Taxi Industry
Recalling the concept of values infrastructures.
?
?
?
Was there an opportunity for Taxi Workers to express their values infrastructure? Was their voice
ever heard?
Many in the taxi industry have resorted to using rideshare services, and not out of their own desire.
And as a forecast of what’s to come, many automotive providers are already moving toward
automation…including Uber.
http://www.theverge.com/2016/10/19/13341130/uber-travis-kalanick-self-driving-cars-automation-jobs
Values Infrastructures
?
How might we understand the con?ict here?
?
Is it functional or technical? Is it axiological?
?
What are the values infrastructures of the workers at Uber (Lyft, etc.)?
?
What are the values infrastructures of the taxi drivers?
?
Who else is involved?
?
People (customers, riders, drivers), local, state, and federal governments.
?
What are the values infrastructures of the users, the designers, and the broader community?
Four Open Questions.
1.
2.
3.
4.
What are you making?
Why are you making it?
For whom are you making it?
How are you making it?
These questions are not merely functional, they are axiological. The answers to
these questions will inform your own values infrastructures.
More Open Questions.
Foresight: Can I foresee how something I make could be put to use in a harmful way?
Intention-in-design: Will my intentions for how something is to be used be understood by the user?
Short-term use: What are the short-term consequences for making and using X?
Long-term use: What are the long-term consequences for making and using X?
Counterfactuals: Knowing what I know now about X, would I have made X then?
The Point of Inquiry
What are my own values infrastructures?
What values do I hold to that help explain why I am designing X in the way that I
am?
Who will you choose to work for?
https://www.calebthompson.io/talks/dont-get-distracted/
Why It Matters
“Can does not imply ought.”
Recall from Lecture 1: Deontic Modal Logic
1.
2.
?
3.
If I have an obligation to do P, then it must be possible that I can do P.
It is possible that I can do P.
________________________________________
I ought to do P.
Why It Matters
“Can does not imply ought.”
Proof:
Recall from Lecture 1: Deontic Modal Logic
1.
2.
?
3.
If I have an obligation to do P, then it must be possible that I can do P.
It is possible that I can do P.
________________________________________
I ought to do P.
?P.
1.
?P ?
2.
?P.
?
3.
___________________________
?P.
T/F ??
T
T
This is an invalid argument.
1 and 2 could both be true, and 3 still turn out to be false.
Fallacy of A?rming the Consequent.
Why It Matters
1.
2.
?
3.
For any possible action P, if doing P would cause harm, … , or bring about malicious
consequences, then I ought to refrain from doing P.
Building, making, engineering are elements of the set of all possible actions.
_______________________________________________________________________
Hence, there are some actions (including building, making, engineering) that I ought to refrain from
doing.
“Just because I can do something, doesn’t mean I should.”
Agency and Responsibility ? Duty and Obligation.
Intentional and unintentional uses ? Consequences (foreseen and unforeseen).
Design Report
Table of Contents
1.0 Executive Summary
3
2.0 Management Summary
4
2.1 Team Layout
2.1.1 Organizational Roles
3.1 Mission Requirements
3.2 Design Requirements
4
4
4
4
3.2.1 Scoring Analysis
Fig.3 Scoring analysis chart
3.2.2 Performance Requirements
3.3 Configuration Study
3.4 Configuration Details
3.4.1 Wing sweep
3.4.2 Drag Reduction Features
3.4.3 Fuselage
Fig.4 Matching Graphs
4.2 Design Tradeoffs
4.4.1 Longitudinal Approximations
5.3 Subsystem Design
5.3.1 Fuselage layout
5.3.2 Electronics
5.4 Weight and Balance
6
6
6
7
7
7
7
7
8
8
9
11
12
12
12
6.0 Manufacturing Plan
6.1 Materials Selection
6.2 Manufacturing Methods
6.2.1 Methods Reviewed
6.3 Manufacturing Schedule
14
7.0 Testing Plan
7.1 Test Objectives
7.4 Flight Plans
7.5 Testing Schedule
7.6 Checklists
15
8.0 Performance Results
8.1 Subsystem Performance
8.1.1 Structure
8.2 Planned Optimization
16
Bibliography
17
14
14
14
14
16
16
16
16
16
17
17
1.0 Executive Summary
For Aircraft Design I & II, our team is submitting our design report on the Send It Aircraft. The
objective of this two-semester length endeavor was to design, build and ultimately successfully
fly our aircraft. Our team established mission parameters that were to be priority number one
throughout the process. We designed and built an aircraft that could have high cruise speed and
swift aerodynamic performance. The goal for this project was to make an aircraft that could fly
at 70mph at cruising altitudes. Incorporating other aspects such as low drag for maximum
efficiency and high power to weight ratio. This aircraft would also be hand thrown and launched
into takeoff range, thus no landing gear was designed or attached. This reduced costs for us and
also reduced complications when designing the aircraft. This aircraft was designed around its
motor. We opted to use a 70mm EDF (electric ducted fan). Although this is not the most efficient
motor for radio control aircrafts, it is a lot more compact and can be fit anywhere needed. This
specific EDF produces around 5.5 pounds of thrust. With this, the power to weight ratio of 1:1
would be achievable. The thin, yet structurally sound design is capable of accomplishing the
speed requirements that we set for ourselves. We wanted to make the aircraft as cost-efficient as
possible and used materials that would be everlasting such as carbon fiber. The weight of the
electronics in the fuselage is the majority of the items contributing to the weight. Our wings, tail,
and fuselage body do not weigh more than 2 lbs. This gave a huge advantage, allowing our
center of mass to be easily changed to match our mission profile needs, and it also allowed us to
keep our power to weight ratio to be high giving us high thrust values.
2.0 Management Summary
3.0 Conceptual design
3.1 Mission Requirements
The modern aerospace industry has been highly developed, many airplanes can reach sonic speed
easily without afterburning. According to that, the Sendit team considers the secret of high speed
is hidden in the aerodynamics. How can we make the airplane fly faster? What design of the
airplane will achieve better aerodynamics? Thus, the major mission for the Sendit Aircraft is to
achieve a high rate of speed in a short period of time, and the minimum speed is 70 mph.
This mission requires the airplane has a high thrust engine, lightweight fuselage, and high liftdrag rate wing design. For high-speed aircraft, the engine designs the thrust that an aircraft can
have and limits the weight of it. The bigger engine provides more thrust, but it expends the scale
of the aircraft. A moderate engine is needed. The lighter fuselage is the keystone of increasing
power to weight ratio, thus, the materials for the parts of the airplane is should be light,
fuselage’s structure should be simple but strong, and the weight balance should be reasonable.
The major lift comes from the wings, the shape of the airfoils designs how many lifts the aircraft
has. In this mission, the aircraft needs to contain low wing load and low aspect ratio. The low
aspect ratio requires a high wingspan and low area.
3.2 Design Requirements
To reach the concept requirements, the Sendit team designed to choose an engine that can
provide around 5 lb of thrust, as a result, the total weight of the airplane will be under 5 lb. The
battery and engine are the heaviest parts in the aircraft, therefore, carbon fabric as the main
material to construct the fuselage, which will guarantee the fuselage is light and strong. For the
airfoil, the Sendit team designed to take NACA 2408 as the main model. The reason is the shape
of NACA 2408 is long and thin, it can generate more lift than the drag in a certain angle
comparing to others model.
Weight is the most important part of this design. Originally, the Sendit team considers the
airplane’s total weight will be five lb, which is 3000 grams base on the data of mass for
individual components. For example, the battery is 600g and motor 200g. To reduce the total
weight, the Sendit team decided to choose light materials for the fuselage and the airfoils. For the
material of the fuselage, the Sendit team was considering carbon fabric either fabric or PVC for
the fuselage. Both materials are light and strong, but carbon fabric is more expensive and lighter
than PVC. to ensure the fuselage is light enough, the Sendit team decided to take carbon fabric as
the material for the fuselage. Wing ribs can reduce weight too. In the beginning, the Sendit team
was thinking using either hardwood or balsa wood as the main material for the ribs. Hardwood is
stronger, but at the same time, it is heavier. Balsa wood is lighter, but it is weaker. For the final
result, the balsa wood was considered because of the lightweight. The team considered that after
the skin wrap is applied to the balsa wood ribs, the wind structure will be strong enough for
strong wind. For other parts of the aircraft, we considered fiberglass, carbon, 3d print material,
and balsa, but…
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