The Laurentian University Voyageur Racing Team has returned triumphant from the Baja SAE competition, held in Gorman, California last month.
Baja SAE is an intercollegiate design competition run by the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE). Teams design and build off-road vehicles.
The competition involves a series of tests, including acceleration, hill climbing, maneuverability and endurance (this involves a four-hour-long race, in which participants complete as many laps of a course as possible).
Participants also need to make a technical presentation about the design of their buggy and go through a series of safety checks.
Laurentian University mechanical engineering students worked on the university's latest entry for two years.
Their perseverance paid off, as they placed 33rd overall out of 96 teams, a vast improvement on previous years. The team also came in 23rd in the endurance race and fifth in the hill climb.
“The hill climb was one of the best demonstrations of our manual transmission,” Weaver said.
“Although our buggy was a little bit heavier than the majority of them that were running around the competition, with being able to use first gear, we were able to make it just about to the top (of the hill).”
This is the third time Laurentian has participated in the event.
The last time was in 2014, when the university's entry wasn't fully assembled until the night before the students left for the competition. The LU team has previously placed about 60th out of the roughly 100 entries.
“We're really happy that we're fairly high in the crowd, considering there's almost 100 teams,” Weaver said. “It showed that our design worked very well and it did exactly what we wanted it to do.”
He said he wants to thank all those who helped the team get to the competition, including sponsors and faculty advisers.
