Student Projects

Northwestern Baja SAE

Project Manager

Ben Ferreira, Student

Amount Requested

$10,000

Summary

The Northwestern Baja team is an entirely student-run organization that designs, builds, and races an off-road car every year. We participate along with over 100 teams from around the globe in competitions run by the Society of Automotive Engineers, where the fastest, most durable, and most agile car wins. This project requires our team to rely on one another and provides a real-world environment within which to learn collaboration, communication, leadership, and management. We also have the unique opportunity through Baja to develop our practical engineering knowledge and skills, including 3D-modeling, design for manufacturing and assembly, welding, machining, etc. Baja undoubtedly creates some of the best problem solvers and engineers who graduate Northwestern. This past year, we participated in a winter Baja racing event in Michigan, where we provided our members with competition and driving experience and pushed our cars to their limits. Our official competition took place in the spring in Oshkosh Wisconsin, where we managed to place 8th in the 4 hour endurance race. We discovered that we built our most durable, reliable, and maneuverable vehicle yet, and that our team is certainly still trending upwards towards better competition placement and better cars. To continue providing this incredibly unique, invaluable experience for our members, we need to continue pushing ourselves in what we can accomplish. The Murphy Scholars have always been incredibly helpful to Baja, and this coming year, we hope to use the funds to do more frequent testing of our vehicles that can provide us with data for better design, and to purchase better components and tooling. Northwestern Baja has proved year after year to be a vastly educational and formative experience for our members, and we hope that, with your contribution, we can continue that experience for the coming year.

Planned Activities/Investments

This past year, we built our best car to date, and with each passing year, both our car and our team evolve and improve with each iteration based on our past mistakes and successes. Thus, in the year to come, we are confident that we can build one that is faster, more efficient, compact, and durable. Last year we began a tradition of meticulously planned training curriculum and resources which allowed our new members to fly into the designing and participating with confidence. This year we hope to fine tune our program for more efficient training and to accommodate more people as we expect the team to continue to grow dramatically. Our aggressive timeline last year proved useful, allowing us to test, break, fix, and innovate our designs. We will push to have our done more than a month before our competition, leaving us more time for the testing and tuning. We also believe that our engineering is now stronger than we can fully take advantage of at our current driving skill. As such we hope to allow our drivers to gain more experience to fully push our cars to the limits and gain a competitive edge in competition. Finally, we are planning to significantly reduce the weight of our car while improving its efficiency and strength as well as our engineering knowledge. Last year led the way by designing custom differentials and a custom rack and pinion gear set for steering allowing us the chance to iterate and grow. With all of these plans for improvement to the team and car that are rooted in our past experiences on Baja, we are confident that we will be able to build our best car yet.

Impact

Northwestern Baja has an intensive design, build, and test cycle that allows members to experience invaluable whole-brained and hands-on engineering in a real-world environment. Baja both complements and extends beyond the information gleaned in engineering classes, presenting realistic engineering situations with memorable lessons. As a result, members of the team develop a strong foundation in the design and manufacturing process in addition to confidence in their ability to communicate clearly and work in a team setting. These impacts are evaluated with regular surveys and meetings that are centered around recruitment and competitions. By tracking and discussing feedback, the team reaches a consensus for any changes that need to be made in the organization, such as increased hands-on training for new members. Additionally, Baja always prioritizes giving back to the Northwestern engineering community. Since many of our members are shop trainers, we are able to pass on the design and manufacturing knowledge that is gained through Baja not only to other members, but to all Northwestern engineers. In addition to this, we host tour groups at our autobay multiple times throughout the year, often in conjunction with the two other vehicle teams, in order to inspire the next generation of engineers

Sustainability

While Baja experienced a decrease in recruitment and activity over COVID, we have seen the team come back to life again this past year, and we have since grown back into the community characterized by enthusiasm, passion, and drive that we know Baja to be. We believe that our club will continue to grow, not only sustaining our team with excitement and energy, but also allow us to advanced further than we ever thought possible. We also have developed a very organized and reliable method by which to pass on our engineering, management, financial, and administrative knowledge, and we actively instill the importance of transferral of knowledge and maintaining written records so that Baja remains sustainable. Each year, Northwestern Baja fundraises about $35,000 from various sponsors and other contributions in order to pay for things such as vehicles, tooling, supplies, travel expenses, competition fees, and more. We’ve been continuously improving our outreach and have established relationships with many of our sponsors. With the help of the Murphy Society, we have been able to build a great car and we see a lot of potential in the cars we build in the future.

Deliverables

Our major deliverable is an off-road car that places well in the endurance event at competition. We have found that these races are designed to break car components after repeated impacts, so durability is the most crucial factor in determining performance. In 2021, we placed 6th with a car that was slow but strong. This past year, our car was just as durable while being 20% lighter, 30% faster and placed 8th against much fiercer competition.. This year, our goal is to build a car that is faster and lighter but still durable, surviving the grueling course conditions in endurance.

Previous Projects

Last year, the funding we received from the Murphy Society went primarily towards our powertrain system among other miscellaneous items for suspension and ergonomics. In 2022-2023 Powertrain underwent huge innovations thanks to our funding. We designed custom differentials in addition to our custom gear box, eliminating the problems caused by purchased parts in our driveline. Additionally we placed 8th in our endurance race, proving our designs and showing where we can improve.

Budget Overview

• $1,500 x 3 = $4,500 Testing Days (3x): Truck Rental, trailer inspection, gas/diesel, car rentals, Admission for all members, and support vehicles. *$1,500 per trip is based on the average of past testing days in Spring 2022 and Spring 2023.
• $818.50 Tooling: SGS Carbide End mills, Harvey tool single profile end mills. Hardened stock gears, Mitsubishi DCGT high feed end mill inserts
• $2,525 Raw Materials: 7075-T6 aluminum, 1144 stressproof steel, 4130 weldable steel, 6-6-2 Ti
• $6,000 Large Items: Fox air shocks, Kohler Engine, Frame tubes designed by us and manufactured by Cartesian
• $356.50 Welding Equipment: Welding helmets, 99.995% Pure Argon

Total: $14,200

Advisor

Baja SAE - Oluwaseyi Balogun, Civil & Environmental Engineering and Mechanical Engineering