Items such as Red Bull and dental hygiene generally do not tend to go hand in hand. However, for ISU engineering students Ryan Betters and Ryan Francois, they melded perfectly to create a high-flying idea.

What spurred their creativity was the Red Bull Flugtag competition. This event was hosted in Singapore, where they are both currently studying abroad (albeit at different universities).

“I’ve been familiar with Flugtag since probably middle school and have enjoyed watching it on YouTube ever since,” Francois said.

Betters was also keen on the idea of entering the contest although he did say, “I never thought I would have the chance to compete in one.”

Roughly 400 applications were submitted with only 38 of the submissions being selected to compete. This was also the first such event held in Singapore.

So, when Francois “happened to see a poster for the event” leaving the gym, he felt compelled to quickly gather a team and seize this opportunity.

With one day left until the entry deadline and after a long night of brainstorming, they finally found inspiration from none other than a toothbrush. It was agreed that a flying toothbrush would be pretty awesome and would stand out among the rest.

This airborne toothbrush would go on to be known as the “Bristle Buster F2” and would be piloted by the infamous Fluoride Man, a fictional superhero played by Betters on competition day.

After being chosen as one of the top 38 teams, they were ready to prepare to strut their stuff in front of what would be 35,000 spectators in Sentosa, Singapore.

To prepare for the big day, they assembled a team to aid in construction, amongst other roles. Most members were gathered from Nanyang University, where Francois is currently studying.

“We launched a team website on the 24th [of August] and started diving into design, but it wasn’t until mid-October that we started construction,” Francois said. “From the initial concept of Fluoride Man to flight day was 2.5 months with about five weeks of solid construction.”

Although they were stuck with a somewhat cramped timeframe to complete construction, which “involved many all-nighters with a lot of Red Bull,” Betters fittingly remarked, Team Fluoride Man had the Bristle Buster F2 ready to fly.

There was a certain criteria they had to keep in mind during ideation and construction. According to Red Bull’s Flugtag website, the criteria requires each team to design a human-powered aircraft, which will take off from a 6 meter ramp into a lagoon.

While the performance of the aircraft is important, creativity is also rewarded. Overall, each team is judged on showmanship, creativity and distance flown.

After the day came, both Betters and Francois professed how fun they had even after a few mechanical setbacks.

“It was a disappointing end [resulting from a wheel assembly breaking pre-flight] to a really long and tiring project, but we had a blast along the way,” Francois said.

Betters said it was an experience that he came away from with new skills.

“I’m walking away from this project with new technical skills from working in the labs, and most importantly, I’m coming with great memories.”

Even with breakdowns, the Bristle Buster still was successful enough to finish in the middle of the pack, although they are not dwelling on what could have been.

“We still achieved everything we set out to do and more. One of the prizes would have been nice, but we did receive a ton of positive feedback from the crowd,” Betters said.