Five mechanical engineering seniors at the University are doing their best to defy the laws of gravity.As a senior design project, the group is building a hang glider to fly at the Red Bull Flugtag Competition this summer.The Flugtag competition challenges teams to build homemade, human-powered flying  machines and pilot them off a 30-foot high deck in hopes of flying. After a few feet in the air, the homemade machines land in the water below.”We are essentially running off a 30-foot pier with the hope of flying,” said team member Eugene Lopez-Oña. The machines are judged based on the flight’s distance, creativity and showmanship. This prompts some interesting designs and wacky displays of courage when approaching the 30-foot drop-off.”When you see it on the Internet, it looks like a bunch of guys goofing off and falling off a pier,” team member Abe King said. “We approached it as a legitimate low speed aerodynamic problem. It has real engineering behind it.”The record for the farthest flight stands at 195 feet, set in 2000 at Flugtag Austria. The U.S. record is 155 feet, set in Nashville, Tenn., in 2007.”Our goal is to beat the U.S. record,” Lopez-Oña said. “We also want to win the competition, which is based on showmanship and creativity in addition to flight distance. We are going to have to dress this thing up and really get the crowd involved if we want to win.”The team plans to decorate the glider’s base like a Mardi Gras float, complete with beads and a bicycle disguised as a tractor.Flugtag, German for “flying day,” started in Vienna, Austria, in 1991. Since then, more than 35 Flugtags have been held around the world attracting up to 300,000 spectators.The University’s Flugtag team consists of King, Lopez-Oña, George Hunsucker, Jason Cary, and Ryan Meyer, all mechanical engineering seniors.The five have been working on their flying machine since the beginning of the fall semester. They did a paper design in the fall and are now working on building the real thing and testing.”Our grade comes from the quality of design and the engineering analysis we conducted to show the validity of our decisions,” Lopez-Oña said. “The competition is the fun part.”Cary and Meyer chose Flugtag as their senior project because it was one of the only projects that didn’t require a sponsor.”The sponsors expect a lot out of these projects and have certain demands,” Cary said. “In this one, we got to come up with own idea and funded it ourselves. All we have to do is meet our own expectations and standards and comply with Red Bull’s rules.”Red Bull stipulates the wingspan cannot exceed 30 feet, and the combined weight of the glider, cart and pilot cannot exceed 450 pounds. The flying machine has to float and be environmentally friendly.Machines must also be human powered, meaning there can be no motors, rubber bands, propellers or anything else that stores potential energy.The University’s Flugtag team chose to use a hang glider because it allows more leeway for inexperienced pilots to lean back and get the most distance with little speed.The group of five bought two hang gliders from Steve Burns, a veteran hang glider from Austin, Texas. They plan to use the sail from one glider for the Flugtag machine and to use the other glider for flying practice. The sail will fit over a collapsible aluminum frame, which will be attached to a wooden cart mounted on wheelchair wheels. The cart is complete, and the team is working on the frame.”We are trying to make it lighter to be better for low-speed flights,” King said. “Usually when you fly [a glider], you get pulled into the air by an ultra-light airplane, or you can jump off a cliff. We have to make do with what we’ve got and make it as light as possible to get the best lift without a cliff or plane.”Red Bull hasn’t announced the location and dates of the competition yet. Last year, there were competitions in Tampa Bay, Fla.; Chicago, Ill., and Portland, Ore.Prizes vary from competition to competition and, in past years, have included a trip to Salzburg, Austria, cash and free flying lessons.—-Contact Jack LeBlanc at [email protected]