The BURD was a two-place human-powered biplane, designed and built by graduates and undergraduates of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, with Professors Eugene Covert and James Mar acting as project advisers.
The biplane configuration, fitted with endplates, was adopted due to the aerodynamic and structural benefits from using that arrangement.
The two-person crew sat in a tandem arrangement, and powered a chain drive which connected to both the rear undercarriage wheel and the rear-mounted pusher propeller.
Taxiing tests conducted at Hanscom Field airport in Bedford, Massachusetts, revealed significant design and construction issues.
[3][4] In 1976, a new iteration of the design, named the MIT BURD II, was built, with this craft incorporating a number of detail changes from the original.