SAE Mini Baja
For SAE Mini Baja, engineering students are tasked with designing and building a single-seat, all-terrain sporting vehicle that is to be a prototype for a reliable, maintainable, ergonomic, and economic production vehicle that serves a recreational user market. Coming from a background of having interests in motor vehicles, I took immediate interest in this club. There were minor electrical systems that I took charge of, but primarily I had a helping hand in building the cars each year.
Every year the car is built slightly different, to comply to various changes in SAE rules and regulations. The mechanical engineers took charge on the design (which was also used as their senior capstone projects), while I provided help with labor, running the club at Manhattan College (As Vice President for three years), and all electrical systems.
Competition every year takes place towards the end of the second semester, and is a three day high stress environment. Every year is a race to get each team's vehicle to pass safety and tech inspection.
Once each team passes tech, they have to do brake tests, acceleration tests, and have the option to do time trial courses to give their teams higher scores. All of this leads to the endurance race on the last day of competition, in which all 100 teams compete on the same track to complete the most number of laps in a given time period. Many of the teams have breakdowns during the race and must repair their vehicle to try and make it back on track.
Every year presents different challenges and obstacles to face. It is up to the students to truly overcome each one and show their passion for engineering.
My favorite part of every competition is the lineup grid waiting for everything to start. It's the calm before the storm.
