The 11th edition of Mahindra BAJA SAE was held at the NATRAX facility, Pithampur in the thick of much fanfare among engineering students across the country.
BAJA (pronounced as Baahaa) SAE India, an aspirational event for mechanical engineering students was kickstarted over a decade ago (2007 to be precise) with a humble 27 teams. Over the past decade, the team count has more than doubled. Approximately 388 teams registered out of which 221 qualified for the finals. However, the story just doesn’t end there. Of the 221 teams, only 112 (87 for mBAJA and 25 for eBAJA) made it to the Endurance round (the event, in particular, we were invited to witness).
After reaching Indore, we were guided to the hotel room to rest for the day. We finished our lunch and took a nap for a while. A networking dinner was planned for in the evening where we were given a briefing of what exactly is BAJA all about and post that we got a chance to interact with the event’s organising committee members. After dinner, it was time to head back to the hotel room for a night’s rest as we had to leave early morning the next day to witness the Endurance run. Like every year, 2018 too had a theme, called ‘Ground to Glory’.
The four-day adventure starts off with the basic Static Evaluation of vehicle’s design, cost and engineering. Each team’s goal was to create a rugged single seat, off-road biased four-wheel vehicle without any direct involvement from professional fabricators. The event aims at giving engineering students an idea of what goes into making or developing a vehicle. The Dynamic Evaluation round tested the vehicle’s acceleration, suspension, traction and manoeuvrability. The Endurance event was flagged off by Mr. Babul Supriyo, Minister of State for Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises and Dr. Pawan Goenka, MD, Mahindra.
As the whistles blew, we were in for a dust storm as the buggies started rolling. It was hard to keep track of the race at all times due to the vast length of the circuit and the hot sun above made it even harder. Rules of the Endurance run were fairly simple. The driver had to tour the buggy for four hours (one hour for eBAJA) through various kinds of terrains which even some of our SUVs would shy away from. It wasn’t a race exactly, where the driver coming first would end up becoming the winner, instead, the driver had to complete as many laps as possible within the given time frame. There were several obstacles in the track (including the muddy pool) testing the driver’s mettle.
Approximately four hours post the start, the race was concluded. The results were to be announced later in the evening. Smt. Kashibai Navale College of Engineering, Pune, won the eBAJA while another college from Pune again, D.Y. Patil College of Engineering won the mBAJA. Standing second was Shri Vishnu College of Engineering For Women, Andhra Pradesh and College of Engineering, Pune in eBAJA and mBAJA respectively.
