First part of Mahindra Baja SAE 2018 concludes

The second part of 11th edition of Baja SAE 2018 is scheduled at IIT Ropar, Punjab, from March 8-11, 2018.

The 11th edition of Mahindra Baja SAE INDIA 2018 concluded at Pithampur on January 28, crowning Kashibai Navale College of Engineering from Pune as the best eBaja team and D.Y. Patil College of Engineering from Pune as the best mBaja team.

The four-day event started with basic Static Evaluation round that comprised of design evaluation, cost evaluation and marketing presentation. In the final round, the teams showcased their prototypes of rugged single seat, off-road recreational four-wheel vehicles and were evaluated on various parameters, including engineering design, CAE, cost and technology innovation.

The objective of the competition was to simulate real world engineering design projects and their related challenges. Each team’s goal was to create a safe, easily transported, easily maintained and fun to drive prototype without any direct involvement from professional fabricators.

However, the teams were free to design their own transmissions with the only restriction being the speed limit to 60km/h. The Dynamic Evaluation Round tested the vehicles for acceleration, sled pull, manoeuvrability and suspension & traction. Durability Evaluation Round saw the vehicles undergo endurance tests of one hour for eBaja and four hours of mBaja. The Endurance Event assessed each vehicle’s ability to operate continuously and at a speed over rough terrain containing obstacles in any weather conditions.

A total of 46 out of 86 mBaja teams and 7 out of 25 eBaja teams successfully completed their respective endurance rounds. About 388 teams had registered in the 11th year of Baja, out of which 221 (161 for Pithampur and 60 for Ropar) teams qualified for the finale. However, only 112 (87 teams for mBaja and 25 for eBaja) made it to the endurance round.

Various other awards for static events were also presented to the winning teams. Marathwada Mitra Mandal’s College of Engineering, Pune, and Kashibai Navale College of Engineering, Pune, (mBaja) bagged the Engineering Design award, whereas Dr D.Y Patil Institute of Technology, Pune, won the Go Green-Emissions Award.

Showing appreciation for the event, Dr Pawan Goenka, Managing Director, Mahindra & Mahindra, said, ‘India is blessed with immense talent, but knowledge and creativity gets restricted in classrooms, and therefore it is desirable that such competitions are encouraged. Baja provides students a pragmatic exposure to real-world challenges as faced in the industry and spurs them towards discovering out-of-the-box solutions. It therefore gives us immense pride to have played an instrumental role in bringing Baja to India around 11 years ago. The success and enthusiasm shown by students towards Baja year after year shows that our role might have spurred many innovations that will benefit society over the long term.’