A Success Story: The Sae Baja Car As A Capstone Senior Design Project

The Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) sponsors regional competitions which are intended to simulate team-based engineering design projects. One such example is the SAE Baja competition (formerly known as the Mini-Baja competition), for which student teams must design and build an off-road that can maneuver robustly through rough terrain. At many universities, the Baja project is organized as a voluntary extra-curricular activity. This paper describes the success of the Baja team from Bradley University which has worked under the guidelines of a two-semester capstone senior design project course. This eightmember team, consisting entirely of Mechanical Engineering students, can be considered successful based on its work throughout the academic year and based on its performance against 140 teams in the SAE Midwest Baja competition in Elkhorn, WI, in May 2006. This Baja team’s success confirms that a design team for a national competition can perform well while operating under the constraints of this course. Also, there are unique benefits for the students and the faculty advisors under this senior design project format. The principles learned by the faculty advisors from this particular project can be used to help future Baja teams or any student project team. Topics covered in this paper include brief descriptions of the SAE Baja competition and the twosemester capstone senior design sequence, advising guidelines for project teams in general and for the Baja team specifically, and more detailed descriptions of this Baja team’s work. Some additional benefits and special experiences enjoyed by this Baja team as a result of their success are discussed.