Baja SAE Indore: Engineering Students Battle It Out

The Baja SAE India brings together motorsport enthusiasts and prospective engineers for a gruelling event on the outskirts of Indore

India’s education system has often been criticized for providing little practical knowledge to students. But if you happen to be studying engineering - and there are plenty of those across the country for reasons not to be disclosed in an automotive magazine - you can put your theoretical knowledge in action at the annual Baja SAE event on the outskirts of Indore.

Over 8,000 students from 323 teams were tasked with designing a buggy around a standard 1-cylinder, 10 horsepower, four-stroke lawnmower engine. Their vehicles not only had to pass the stern tests, but they also need to be reliable enough for a four-hour endurance run that takes them to the harshest of terrains.

Sounds easy? Not until you realize that only 122 teams qualified for the event with just short of 75 squads making it the endurance run. Obstructing their path were a string of Static and Dynamic test which rate the teams on a host of parements such as design, cost, acceleration, speed, etc.

Even if you’ve met the odds (23/100, for your information), chances are you’ll fall prey to the 4.5 km course that was ‘10 times tougher’ than its predecessor. Mud, hill climb and water stretches - all sorts of gruelling terrains be waited the finalists as they pounded the proving grounds of NATRIP (Automotive Testing and R&D Infrastructure Project) for four straight hours. To give a perspective of how challenging it is, a Formula 1 race lasts for a maximum of 2 hours with the chequered flag usually waved after 2/3 of that duration.

For students though - most of them in the final year - it’s a challenge they relish. Many of them are keen to make an impression and land top level jobs, with title sponsor Mahindra using the event as a scout for potential staff.

For others, it’s their love for motorsport that has dragged them to the Central India. “We share the same passion for motorsport, as we do for engineering,’’ one of the teams from Coimbatore told autoX when asked as to what was the driving force behind their participation in the event. “It’s an exciting challenge for us and we are thankful to our college for providing the financial backing.”

Unlike the aforementioned team, most of them had to spread their legs in search for sponsors. The well-backed College of Engineering team from Pune eventually prevailed, taking top honours in the endurance run and the majority of Static and Dynamic tests. Having finished runners up last year, it was a natural progression for the team that designed the lightest buggy of the pack at 160 kg.

eBaja add-on

In line with Mahindra’s Formula E efforts, the eighth edition of Baja included an electric race that ran on a similar platform to the flagship event. However, due to its late inclusion, only 12 teams participated with KL University, Guntur emerging supreme.