On April 29 of 2021, our New Mexico Tech Baja SAE team went to competition for the first time since the Covid-19 pandemic began. Taking place in Tucson, Arizona, this year’s competition consisted of 43 teams; with our team placing 16th overall and beating NMSU’s team.   Considering the limited amount of resources and allowed social interaction during the pandemic, NMT’s team is quite proud of the outcome.

           Baja SAE is a competition run by the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) in which “each team's goal is to design and build a prototype of an all-weather, rugged, single-seat, off-road recreational vehicle intended for sale to the nonprofessional weekend off-road enthusiast” (Official Baja SAE website). As a part of the competition students get to operate their designed vehicles in a variety of tests, the outcomes of which are applied to their total scores. To see some pictures of NMT’s past vehicles and teams you can check out the NMT Baja Weebly.

            Due to COVID-inducted limited social interaction, one of the largest struggles the team faced this year were the restrictions around working together in person as a large team. As part of COVID restrictions, the team also only had 8 team members instead of the usual 14. The team surpassed all these obstacles, however, and managed to produce a working vehicle for the competition.

            The Baja project is an example of the Mechanical Engineering program’s focus on providing students with hands-on project experience. Cole Dunning (drivetrain team lead for the team) mentioned,  “It was nice to use the knowledge from classes,” noting that it brought all the classes together into a giant culmination of information that assisted the team members in almost every aspect of the Baja project.

            If you are interested in learning more about the Baja project and ways that you can contribute your talents and efforts, visit the Baja SAE Homepage.