Off the Beaten Path
By Youmi Chun
April 21, 2003 9:00 p.m.
For the fourth year in a row, UCLA’s chapter of the
Society of Automotive Engineers has designed and built a race car
to compete in the Mini Baja West competition.
The team’s race car will be entered against 108 other cars
in the regional annual engineering design and performance
competition sponsored by SAE.
The car is built mainly out of lightweight, high-strength steel
and aluminum. It is 80-inches long, 16-inches wide and 5-feet,
six-inches tall; it weighs approximately 450 pounds with a driver
seated inside.
The car was built by a group of about 20 SAE members at UCLA.
The team is comprised mostly of mechanical engineering students but
also includes biology, psychology and English students.
“I think this has been a great experience because
we’ve learned how to use our knowledge and apply it to
something real,” said UCLA SAE President Greg Glenn, a
fourth-year mechanical engineer.
Designing of the race car began in June 2002 with the actual
construction beginning January.
“This was my first year working on this project, and
I’ve learned a lot … because I’ve never really worked
with metal before,” said Scott Wright, a third-year
electrical engineering student. “It’s cool to be able
to do something tangible and to go race it later.”
Despite the complexity of building a race car from the ground
up, team leaders of the Mini Baja project said they didn’t
run into very many obstacles.
“I think that this year it’s been built better than
previous years,” said Mini Baja project leader James Sharp, a
fourth-year mechanical engineer. “This year we improved the
design from last year and were more organized, so it was easier to
make.”
Third-year mechanical engineer Jan Pochop agrees that this
year’s car has turned out better than previous years.
“I think it will perform better since we did a better job
of building and designing the electrical system,” he said.
“It’s more organized as far as the design
goes.”
Glenn added that the only problems they faced were time and
budget constraints, which is an issue in almost any project.
“Money is always a problem, but we got sponsors and help
from lots of different places,” he said.
The car’s engine is donated to each team every year by
Briggs and Stratton Corp., which produces a 10-horsepower engine
with a suggested retail price of $628.
This year, the Mini Baja team spent about $5,000 in parts to
build a whole new car. The team also received donations, funding,
discounts and support from corporate sponsors such as Raytheon and
Honeywell. Last year, the team spent $3,400 while operating on a
tight budget. In previous years, they spent as much as $10,000 to
build a race car.
The race car is expected to be finished by the end of this week
in time for this year’s Mini Baja West regional competition
in early May.
Before travelling to Provo, Utah, the team will have a week to
test out its newly built car. Only eight members of the Mini Baja
team will participate in the competition May 8-10.
The competition will be divided into three days. The first day
will be a static event; the race cars will be judged based on their
design, and there will be a mock sales presentation, where teams
will pitch their cars for mass production.
The second day will consist of individual events where the cars
will be tested in hill climbing, rock crawling, and maneuvering.
Each team member will have a chance to drive the car in at least
one of the events.
The last day will feature a four-hour endurance test. In
previous years, the test has included obstacles such as mud pits
and drop-offs.
UCLA’s Mini Baja project leaders’ goal is to finish
the four-hour endurance competition this year.
“Two years ago, it broke down after half an hour,”
Glenn said. “Last year we lasted for three and a half hours,
so I hope this year we will finish.”
Sharp is very optimistic about this year.
“I feel it’s going to be a really good year,”
he said. “We were strong last year, so I’m expecting to
do better. … I hope we finish the whole thing this
year.”
Assistant project leader David Miller, a third-year mechanical
engineering student, Glenn and Sharp are expected to be this
year’s drivers for the endurance event.
Miller sounded enthusiastic about driving the car in the
race.
“It’s the first year that I’ll be driving in
the endurance race,” he said. “It’s exciting to
be able to drive something that you built.”
