Baja SAE consists of three regional competitions that simulate real-world engineering design projects and their related challenges. Engineering students are tasked to design and build an off-road vehicle that will survive the severe punishment of rough terrain and in the East competition—water.
The object of the competition is to provide SAE student members with a challenging project that involves the planning and manufacturing tasks found when introducing a new product to the consumer industrial market. Teams compete against one another to have their design accepted for manufacture by a fictitious firm. Students must function as a team to not only design, build, test, promote, and race a vehicle within the limits of the rules, but also to generate financial support for their project and manage their educational priorities.
All vehicles are powered by a ten-horsepower Intek Model 20 engine donated by Briggs & Stratton Corporation. For over twenty-five years, the generosity of Briggs & Stratton has enabled SAE to provide each team with a dependable engine free of charge. Use of the same engine by all the teams creates a more challenging engineering design test.
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Central Michigan University SAE Baja is in it's third year of prodution, making it a young, up and coming team which is making vast improvements to each years design to reduce overall weight, improve handling characteristics, and make an overall more competitive car.
The 2008 Baja car is still in it's beginning stages, with the semester starting overall design will be finalized.
The 2007 Baja car competed in all three of the Society of Automotive Engineers sanctioned races, as well as an unsactioned event sponsored by Michigan Tech called winter Baja. The 2007 car weight was reduced by nearly 400lbs and was nearly twice as fast at the top end. We also completed a redeisgn on the 2006 car and took both the 2007 and 2006 cars to the SDSM race. The 2007 car was fast and nimble and was a great competitor, which put the Central Michigan University name in the mind of many of the other teams. The vehicle ran into a number of unfortunate small breakdowns throughout the last two races which lowered the placing in those two events due to down time spent in the pits.
Car #99 - 2nd Place Overall
Car #34 -14th Place Overall
Car #67 - 27th Place Overall
Car #66 - 28th Place Overall
3 Major break downs
Car #99 - 68th Place Overall
2006 was our first year ever competing in the Baja design series. We started with a small team of four students and without any real idea of what to expect for a Baja race we deisigned and built a vehicle for the Midwest race in Elkhorn, WI. The event was alot of fun and gave us some real insight to build upon for upcoming seasons.
Car #77 - 68th Place Overall