BAJA : The Dream

Baja is an All Terrain Vehicle competition conducted worldwide by different SAE organisations. In India SAEINDIA will conduct this competition and it is powered by  Mahindra.

Here is the link to official SAEINDIA web page:- SAEINDIA-BAJA
You can check all the videos in the gallery of the page, but check out these two videos to have an Idea what BAJA actually is:
                        1)  baja 2017 official promo .     2)  baja 2018 promo unofficial

             After watching these two videos and having a glance at the official website, you must have got some idea about the competition. The track on which we race is NATRAX Pithampur. This is Asia's biggest testing track for automobiles. Now coming to BAJA, it is pronounced as "BAHA" tough spelled differently.
                          Here is a video to pronounce it correctly : baja pronunciation

            Now that you are familiar with the things regarding the competition, it is easier to elaborate on my experience on this topic. BAJA it is a dream project for every mechanical student in our club. We look forward to getting into Baja team. As told in earlier blog, our club SAEINDIA SNIST has a recruitment process, after we qualify an exam we are selected into a team and assigned a vehicle in the first year of the club. I have been assigned to SPKC Go-Kart, after successful completion of the first vehicle, we have to give BERT exam. BERT means BAJA and EFFI CYCLE recruitment test. These two are national level competitions conducted by SAEINDIA. We take great deal of interest in these two competitions and are very skeptical about the recruitment process. Technical heads and alumni will conduct the exam for final year and 3rd year students. After the exam an interview is taken. Results are announced on the page, people are divided into two teams after BERT, a team of 10 for the Effi-cycle and a team of 25 for BAJA.

              I was selected into BAJA team for 2018. I just finished my second year of engineering and was given a month break by the college. All my roommates left to home for vacation, but our captain started the wok for Baja in the month of May itself. Competition was in coming January, but we needed as much time as possible. We started our work in summer vacation, starting with old rule book. It was important for all the new recruits to get acquainted with the terminology used in the Rule book.

              Rule book: this is most important document for the vehicle. There are certain standards that are given in the rule book which are mandatory to make the vehicle safe for the driver and also to avoid catastrophes in the race. Every competition has its own rule book and all the rules are inspected first at virtual round then at Technical inspection. If the vehicle qualifies all the parameters, it is allowed in the competition. Here is a sample of Baja 2019 Rule book : BAJA 2019 rule book

              We started our work on design using old rule book as reference, as the new rule book was yet to come. Our seniors and designers were having discussions about where to assemble everything in the vehicle and all other things. We had no idea, it was our first All Terrain Vehicle. We were just paying attention to them, we were learning. Our team registration was done and we were assigned a vehicle number. The initial pre-design work was very tedious, we had to take in to all considerations and do number of iterations on the design. After several hundreds of roll cage designs we have finalized one roll cage (check this link for details of roll cage ) . But this was not the final one, the new rule book must be released and we had to verify all the new corrections in the rule book. After few days the new rule book was released, we had to make some changes according to the new rule book.

               In BAJA, the competition is very high. More than 500 teams participate national wide. So the event organizers need to screen out the teams. They do this by conducting a virtual round, in this round all the teams will be called to a college. A group of 5 representing the team of each vehicle will arrive at the respective place along with their concept of vehicle and all the technical data needed. They need to give a small presentation on their vehicle, after the presentation they will be scrutinized by the judges. There will be scoring as per the presentation and the discussion round. The judges will assess the presentation along with the team, they will decide whether the team is capable of creating an All Terrain Vehicle. Then after the virtual results have come up teams can start their fabrication process. We have been qualified in the Virtual round and we were allotted Pithampur track. We were very happy with the result, without wasting any time, we have begun our work again.

               We had exams in between, there were problems with the manufacturers and some delays. We have decided to use Gaged CVT that year, we have done a great deal of discussion whether to take the CVT or not, because it was around 2 lakhs and that was a huge amount to spend on one component. We had to be very sure, we have gone through other alternatives their cost, weight and ratios. Gaged GX9 was winner and suitable for our purpose. And we have ordered the CVT from gaged. But it was from USA, there were customs issues and we faced additional 50 thousand charges. We have finally got our CVT and we also had to order new FOX Pneumatic suspensions as our old ones were of no use. We had a lot of expenditure in OEM parts so we had to choose our fabrication parts wisely and had to ask for sponsorship with some industries for manufacturing.

               Many problems and many issues with investment. We had a rough year. We have planned for various events for fund raising. We have conducted workshops and some other events to compensate for the expenditure. We were successful to some extent and had a little profit. We used the amount for the club proportionally. In the mid of December our vehicle was already being tested, painting and body works were to be done. We didn't paint before because we had to test the vehicle in rough terrains. We completed our vehicle testing and we were ready for the competition.

           We have reached the competition with our vehicle. The first day it was inauguration, all teams gathered near the auditorium. After completion of inauguration ceremony, buggies were lined up for the Technical inspection. This is the main and crucial qualifying round for the vehicle. Three judges were checking all the rules and condition of vehicle. Only 5 people are allowed each from one subsystem along with captain and driver. Judges with more than 5 to 6 years experience will be checking the vehicle and they will surely find mistakes, which we might have overlooked. They asked us to make some changes, asked us to come again for the second TI. We have made necessary changes and lined up for second TI. We have qualified the Technical inspection, it was a great relief. They signed and pasted the TI qualification sticker. With pride we walked to our pits. It was now time to line for the next qualifying round. Brake test, this is very essential in any competition or in general for any vehicle. This will decide the safety of the driver and others in the arena.

         We have lined up for the brake test, we are next in the line. We were called to crank the engine and the engine wouldn't start. We tried for several times and we were asked to take the vehicle out of the way and line up later after the resolving the problem. We took it out of the way, we tried twice and engine started. We put the vehicle in line up and continued through the test. We qualified in the first attempt it self. Now we had another qualifying sticker from brake test.

      We were filled with joy, but we had some trouble with the engine. We had a new CVT but were not getting enough torque. What went wrong we didn't understand for a while. Any ways we started for the next event. We lined up again, this time also the engine wouldn't start, we tried and started the engine and our driver Anish completed the auto cross. But the engine abruptly stopped everyone was in shock. We did whatever we could and took the engine to briggs and Stratton engine technician provided by the BAJA event organizers. He opened up the engine and told that Carburetor was damaged and had to be replaced. It costed 7 thousand, we were already in deficit and had no money to spare. We have asked for help from alumni and arranged for the carburetor. Thanks to seniors for arranging money at time of need. We had gone to other rounds but due to old engine and failed carburetor our buggy hadn't had enough torque developed by the engine to run steeper lands. 

      We had a bitter experience but it also gave us an idea about the track, it was very tough and had many terrains. We haven't had any idea about the though roads. We thought that the torque we calculated would be enough for the vehicle to complete the track. But we have not anticipated such sudden steep curves. Our engine didn't produce enough torque and the track was new for us. We have learned all the changes that are required to be done in the upcoming vehicle. We came across different problems in the competition and learned a lot of new things as well.

     We made all necessary changes for the Endurance, we have arranged our positions at different spots around the arena for emergency assistance. The event was started and the buggies were running wild. Our buggy came and we shouted, we have started our timers. After 4 to 5 laps our buggy came to pit to replace a toe link of the rear suspension which was bent due to impact. We changed it as soon as possible and again buggy started to race, after 14 to 18 laps again buggy was not on track. Everyone was waiting for a response from the organizers. Later we were called to our pits and there was our buggy broken in half at the engine cabin. We were horrified by the damage caused to our dream. Driver was safe as he had all the safety equipment in place. Our one year dream was lying down and everyone for once had a great silence. Everything was lost we thought. We were gloomy and moody, seniors were dull for few minutes. They again cheered everyone up and said, we came to learn and we have learnt a great deal during the making of our buggy. we have faced many challenges and also saw many difficult situations. We have gained experience and we have been successful in making our vehicle. Take this event as a lesson, when you come next time to BAJA remember all the hurdles while designing. Learn from your mistakes. We started gathering all the failure points and also all the causes. First and foremost was the engine problem, then the Suspension geometry was not accurate, there was a little off set during fabrication. It stresses whole chassis and instead of suspension taking all the impacts it became rigid and sent all the force to rear mountings. This fatigue caused the rear cabin to break. We learned from our mistake and started planning for the next BAJA.                                 

        There ended my second vehicle my dream BAJA. We learnt so many things in the journey, we have learnt to raise fund for our vehicle, we have learned to teach, we have learned to struggle, we have learned to plan, we have learned to face challenges, we have learned to accept failures, we have learned to fail and most of all we have learned to succeed. This project introduced a new world to us, a real world where everything will not go as per your plan. There will be terrible and drastic changes that will be happening. Very frequently you will see failures rather than success. This is life, not engineering exam, where you learn something and present it on paper, where you solve problems you have already learned. Here, there will be problems never occurred to any one, not even you, while practicing. It will come to you as a total surprise, you will find it very difficult to believe. After everything i have done, after taking every precaution, after spending hours of discussions and days of practice, you encounter a problem never seen before. But trust me you will learn, new things and new possibilities. Whatever you do, how much carefully you may do, you can't make it 100 % good. It may be less wrong than last time you made, but it will never be zero. It is hard to accept but yeah it is true, the dream you put efforts for, all the time that you gave for it and still its not perfect. One must accept that nothing can be made perfect, if it fails learn why it failed and try to correct it next time. Unlike engineering course life has no end, B.Tech may finish after 4 years but you have to continue to learn for your life. New possibilities every day and new problems everyday. We need to solve them no matter what, even if no one helps you, you must tackle it with out fear. No matter what, Life must go on.....!

           And for people who are interested to know more about the BAJA competition, here is a link to wikipedia :- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baja_SAE