-Mini Baja Project-
March 2002
I am currently a member of Texas Tech's 5 person Mini Baja Team, performing the task of systems integration (stuff like the swing arm mount, electrical system, and throttle, shift, and brake cables/pedals). We have been designing the race vehicle for a year this fall, and plan to start major construction this summer. Hopefully, I will have lots of photos of the build to post, as well as technical drawings and sketches. All of us are very excited, and I believe that we have a good chance at placing in the five-hour endurance race. It sounds like the race is going to be held in Utah, so we should be able to prepare by tearing around the West Texas canyons to get an idea of how it will be in Utah.
May 2003
Overall., the project turned out well. We all got A's for it, for starters, and as a prototype. it performed better than expected. We had a little trouble with our drive train, but some tweaking fixed it up quite a bit. The car was built like a tank, and our best efforts to destroy it were to no avail. Unfortunately, the race was held during our finals, so we were unable to attend. In retrospect, we would have needed much lower gearing to compete in some events, specifically the hill climb and rock crawl, a modification not out of the question. Here are some pictures and notes, mostly taken from our documentation for the associated capstone design course.
Check out the SAE website for some details.