USU students prepare to compete in Baja SAE event
Dropping cliffs, taking jumps and nailing tight turns are all obstacles for the latest off-road buggy designed by the Utah State University Mini Baja club.
USU’s Mini Baja club took a brief hiatus for a few years, but after receiving some funds, the club is back and preparing a vehicle for the next Baja SAE event, which will take place in Gorman, California in May.
Baja SAE is an intercollegiate design competition hosted by the Society of Automotive Engineers. At each event, teams from different colleges around the country and world build single-seat buggies to race and compete in a series of events over four days.
Baja SAE has certain specifications that must be followed by all teams, but apart from that it is up to the students to create the best vehicle possible.
Jake Behan, senior club member, has been keeping these rules in mind while designing the vehicle.
“Every team across the country has a stock motor. You can’t touch it. It is 10 horsepower,” Behan said. “There are certain competition restraints for safety. After that it is pretty much how can you build the fastest, most durable, and lightest vehicle.” Behan also said that a second motor or any other propulsion device can’t be added to the vehicle.
Mini Baja’s vehicle is expected to reach speeds of 30 mph. The team is building everything custom and from scratch. They work every Thursday in the metal shop building pieces for the vehicle.
“We start with a metal block of aluminum,” said Jentry Young, club co-president, explaining what happens in the metal shop. “We will be cutting it until we have our final part. We are using pretty raw materials and creating something useful out of it.”
Once the vehicle starts coming together, the club members will begin testing it and making final preparations before the trip to California. The club is currently on the lookout for a driver; due to the size of the vehicle, they need someone who is 5’2” and around 150 lbs. They keep a functioning vehicle on campus so they can take some practice drives.
Though the club is comprised of seniors from the mechanical engineering program who are participating as their final project, the club is looking for other members to help with different aspects of the event.
“It’s a rigorous competition,” said Wyatt Brown, project manager. “It is a four-day event and race series. The competition is very broad and they want you to know information on a sales perspective, business aspects and graphic design as well.”
Brown finds a lot of satisfaction in using his skills to build something he loves. “No project is more fun than one you can drive off a jump,” he said.
Although the adrenaline of building an all-terrain vehicle is exciting, the club members realize the importance of this project and how it will help them in the future.
“Every little detail has to be on a production-level scale. It gives us a lot of experience seeing the project from start to finish,” Young said. “To have that before you even graduate is something that a lot of companies really like to see.”
The team hopes to improve this year at Baja SAE and keep the Mini Baja club going into the future. For them, it has been a special time to build a vehicle together.
“We have a opportunity to build off designs and improve things. We want to make it sleeker, faster, and better because we want to win,” Behan said. “I’ve been learning from books and doing homework, but now we get to build something that you can actually drive. There is nothing else like that on campus. It truly is the most unique project on campus.”
—shelby.black@aggiemail.usu.edu
@shelbsterblack