Team VEGA demonstrates innovation at BAJA India

By admin April 17, 2015 1:01 pm IST

Bound by passion and need for endurance and speed, team VEGA, a group of budding engineers recently attended an event in NIT Jamshedpur under the name BAJA Student 2015
BAJA Student India (BSI)BAJA Student India is a student design competition which follows the standards of the international BAJA SAE competition held all over the world. The BAJA Student India is an event for the undergraduate engineering students, organised by the Delta Inc. The BAJA SAE Series for the undergraduate engineering students is organised globally by the Society of Automotive Engineers, USA. The event originated in the name of Mini – BAJA, in the year 1976 at University of Carolina. Since then, the event has spanned across six countries – USA, Mexico, South Africa, Korea, Brazil and India. The BAJA Student India tasks the students to design, fabricate and validate a single seater 4-wheeled off road vehicle to take part in series of events spread over a course of 4 days that test the vehicle for the sound engineering practices that have gone into it, the agility of the vehicle in terms of gradability, speed, acceleration and manoeuvrability characteristics and finally its ability to endure that back breaking durability test. Focus of this competition is on safety, good engineering practice, engineering design and education of the participating students.
ObjectiveSeveral factors contribute to making a winning buggy. First and foremost the buggy has to meet the strict specification of the rule book. The teams still need to build a simple all-terrain vehicle for recreation purpose that is aesthetically and ergonomically sound while still being a fun and durable machine in the real world conditions. The evaluation process for the BAJA Student India is a twofold process and students have to clear the virtual rulebook quiz round before they start manufacturing their buggies for the main events.
The evaluation process in the main event is a different ball game altogether and the students finally got to showcase their finished buggies to the judges. In the static tests the buggies are evaluation on various factors such as cost, aesthetics and the quality of the fabrication. There are also many dynamic tests such as acceleration. Braking, manoeuvrability over all terrain and a hill climb test. But none of these tests are more gruelling than the endurance race where the drivers and buggies are pushed to their limits till a winner emerges.

The hill climb and the obstacle course are just some of the dynamic tests that the buggies have to endure to make it to the finish line.
During eventNearly 100 teams from various colleges participated in the event. The event saw some imminent personalities from the world of motor sports. Steve Fox, the chief design judge FSAE Michigan, USA and Peter Jones were on the panel of judges.
The team qualified the technical inspection .Out of those 100 teams, Team Vega secured 28th position. Judges also appreciated the suspension system used in car. Apart from technical inspection, business presentation was also organised. In the same, the Team Vega secured 7th position. The results were overwhelming.
As the journey does not end here, team VEGA continues to enhance knowledge and explore more in the field of automobile engineering.