[SRK]

Congrats for your achievements.
Looking forward to your 2012 car.

Baja is really an awesome experience that every student should get.

One tip that we received from Mr. Dhabhar when he visited out college for inspection "Keep things simple and test as much as you can before the race and be ready in such a state that the only thing you need to do at the event is just connect your battery and keep going".

Can you elaborate more on your last year's transmission CVT + Manual?

[karthik123]

^ same question, can you please elaborate on the cvt+manual transmission? And congrats on the win . Very nice plan and execution

[S.I.N.G.H]

I would like to share with you all that yet again a teambhpian has achieved a milestone in offroad racing. WE are the winners of BAJA SAEINDIA 2012

Participating in Baja SAEINDIA 2012 was an amazing experience for me. Rather than a competition, it was more of a learning experience for me. This learning began from day one, from when i joined the team. Being a first year student, i didnt have much knowledge of the whole process. This event gave me a chance to work with a group of people handling different responcibilities, coordinating with each other and meeting the deadlines.

It was around second week of march when i was chosen as a member of THE CONRODS. I was elated to be chosen as this was the first time i was a part of an event of such scale. With passage of time, i started to lean the art of fabrication from the fellow team mates who had already worked for similar events in the past. With constant practice, i along with the other team mates was able to master the art of fabrication. It was now that we were able to use the technical terms of the components rather than the words used in lay man's tongue. Now i felt that i was actually persuing my intrest and hobby as my career. This was the first time i had the actual taste of automotive engineering. All thanks to BAJA and my university.

Soon after learning the different aspects of fabrication, we had the Virtual BAJA to work for. We prepared dummy models, power point presentations and display charts. A result of this was that we were able to successfully clear the virtuals, which wass the first milestone. Still alot was remaing to cover.
Without wasting any more time, we started the fabrication process and decided our deadlines. Now we had started our fabrication process at our fabrication bay. 24 students, working together with proper syncronisation was a difficult process, but with the constant monitoring by the team captian, this became possible. Within 20 days of the start of fabrication, we could see the vehicle come together. Soon after, we started testing the vehicle and the training process of our team driver.

During the testing phase, we had quite alot of hiccups, in terms of component failure and damage. But we were able to rectify the problems in almost no time. We were back on the track for testing. After testing the vehicle for almost 350 kilometers, we were very confident about the ablities of our vehicle. Soon we started dismanteling the vehicle for the paint job and the final assembly. This was followed by the official technical inspection organised by the concerned authorities. We were able to successfully clear the inspection in the first time itself.

This was almost a week before we had to dispatch the vehicle that we painted the vehicle. with alot of pricision and care, we painted the vehcle with the colour which the team called 'captian blue'. After the paint had dried, we carefully assembled the vehicle and were ready to take the final few laps of testing. Soon we dispatched the vehicle to Indore.

The whole team left from Chennai to Indore. On reaching there, we unloaded the vehicle and did a short test drive to check if everything was working fine. We took the vehicle to the track and left it in our designated pit. The next day, the static events started. Seeing all the vehicles there, i was astonished. There is so much talent in our country which has been highlighted by this event.

It was the day when we started with our static events. But before everything came the technical inspection. We were able to complete the inspection in record time just because of the effort that we had put in during the design and fabrication process. Now came the dynamic events. We went through the steering test or what we call 'the figure of 8 test', the mock break test. With this, we called off our day, and went back to our accomodation in the city which was almost two hours from the track.

On day two the first event that we participated in was the break test. On completion, we went for the manuverablility test. On the call of start, we zoomed through the track cutting through the turns and obsticles at once and completing the track efficiently in record time. Next we rushed towards the hill climb as we wanted to complete it on day two itself. It was not very long that we got to know that the torque in our vehcle was able to pull it through both the hill climb tracks. At 6pm, we called off our day 2.

The next day we had one-to-one conversation with judges judging different aspects of our vehcle followed by the sales and marketing judging and vehicle weighing. Soon we were back to our pit and a bit relaxed after the hectic day. We made sure that our vehicle was ready for THE DAY!

It was day 4, THE DAY! We were given a position in the third row on the track. Soon the race started and i was one of the lucky participants who was on the track to take care of the vehicle if it breaksdown. We were able to run the vehicle successfully for four hours and complete the ENDURANCE race.
When the prizes were anouced, we got the team with the second most safe vehicle on the track, second prize for the mauverability. And finally the time came for which we were waiting for the whole year. We were the national champions and had won BAJA SAEINDIA 2012. Everyone was awe-struck and dumb-founded. It was our dream and we were seeing it come true. What else could one ask for now.

This is not it. Mahindra & Mahindra also gave the students a chance to sit for the placement process. I must say, this has given the students a chance to reach beyond what one can expect. And this has just been possible because this connection between the industry and the institutions.

Never the less, this had been one of the most memorable events in my life which i would cherish throughout my life. - NAMANDEEP SINGH OBEROI

[arshjeet singh]

[quote=SRK;2653427]Congrats for your achievements.
Looking forward to your 2012 car.

Baja is really an awesome experience that every student should get.

One tip that we received from Mr. Dhabhar when he visited out college for inspection [b]"Keep things simple and test as much as you can before the race and be ready in such a state that the only thing you need to do at the event is just connect your battery and keep going".

great job done guys. you understood BD's idea behind the successful participation and finished on the podium.

testing well executed before the actual event always pays off.. either you go home as the champions of the event or you go back with comprehensive learning about the failure that holds you back from winning.

in order to finish first you have to first finish.

regards
arshjeet

[kaushik60]

Originally Posted by S.I.N.G.H

Participating in Baja SAEINDIA 2012 was an amazing experience for me. Rather than a competition, it was more of a learning experience for me. - NAMANDEEP SINGH OBEROI

Hey Namandeep!
Congrats on your achievement.
It's an amazing feeling when all the hard work put in at the workshop finally pays off on the track!
And as you rightly said, it is a learning experience more than anything. I speak from experience here, for I have been where you are. I was part of Team NITK Racing, and spent my college years totally immersed in SAE activities. Starting off with Small RC car development, I was lucky to go on to Virtual Baja '09 (which we were runners up in), Baja '10 (where we won the cost award) and FSAE Michigan '11. And now that I'm working in one of the auto giants in India, I can safely say that all these experiences definitely gives me a helping hand here at work. Things which my fellow colleagues find hard to grasp, come more naturally to me. So, it's brilliant stuff you guys are upto, stuff that has very tangiable results once you join the industry.
My only advice is to use every moment of college-racing to learn and experiment, because nowhere else will you get this unique opportunity to experiment with YOUR own designs.
By god, I miss those days!
All the best!

[S.I.N.G.H]

thanks for the response sir. could you please give us more inputs on the vehicle design, the firm you are working in and a little guidance as to what to opt as a career once we passout with an experience such as baja.

thanks
naman

[dustom_99]

With Practical hands-on experience of developing components/ stessed members,understanding Integartion and dynamics, good place to work IMO would be Validation wing of any automotive R&D. Also Plant Vehicle Teams/ Drive train teams would be equally good.

[crazyfordriving]

Amazing pictures, Congratulations for your award.

[S.I.N.G.H]

Thankyou sir. I'll try to post the pictures of this year's event also. Although we didn't win this time, but the competition was very good.

Our 2013 and 2014 vehicles:

Will follow up with a write up soon.

[Senna4Ever]

Had a go in your car today, and must say was very impressed.


And apologies for the extra lap, misunderstood the signals :/

[Senna4Ever]

Hi Folks!

Mods : Please remove the '2012' from the thread title.

Reviving this thread once again. As you can see, there haven't been any updates since a long time, so apologies for that. Also, if you’re wondering about my previous post, it’s from a time when I wasn’t part of the team myself, but got a chance to drive the 2014 car during a promotional event.
Well, the past 3 seasons of BAJA SAE have been a real roller-coaster ride for the team. Being the national champions in 2012, expectations were high for the next season. But unfortunately, our performance was well below what we had targeted for, and we could only manage 37th position overall. Nonetheless, in such competitions, it’s the experience that counts, and that is exactly what we gained loads of. Focus moved to the new car for the next competiton.

2014 was a significant improvement over the previous year, and we finished 17th overall but we still believed that we could do much better, and take the team to international standards.

So for the 2015 competition the goals were clear. Design and fabricate according to true international standards, and establish ourselves as a top Baja team once again. And that is what the team worked day-in, day-out to achieve. Out went the standard, heavy aftermarket parts, and in came custom parts, designed and machined specifically for us, by us. What resulted was a reduction in unladen weight from around 257 kgs to just 168.5 kgs. A reduction of a whopping 88.5 kgs! Superb driving and racing skills from our driver Abrar Bin Ayub (who btw will be the first Kashmiri to take part in the Raid de Himalaya 2015, on his Duke 390) meant that the Conrods stood 2nd overall in the dynamic events in the Baja SAE India 2015. The team achieved 1st place in the Manoeuvrability test, setting a new record in the process. We were running in the top 10 in the gruelling endurance also, but a tiny little circlip failure cost us 40 valuable minutes, and this possibly took the overall championship away from us. The overall position of the team in the 2015 competition was 9th .

But what did I say about taking the team to international standards? Well, if the car is that good, why not take it to an international competition and compete with the top Baja teams from around the world? This was precisely what the team decided to do. What resulted was the Conrods representing India and SRM University at the Baja SAE Auburn, USA in April 2015, thanks to support from our college and the valuable sponsors of our team. This wasn’t the first time the Conrods had gone international. Back in 2010, the team took part in Baja-SAE South Africa. But I’ll save story that for another day.

Baja Auburn was a different experience altogether. All the top teams of the world everybody used to marvel at, were actually there to compete with us! The cars over there were of a whole different level. There were cars that weighed as little as 134 kgs unladen ! The level of technology and innovation in the cars was the highlight. There were teams who had brought along their own trailers, which were nothing short of mini-workshops with lathe machines, drilling machines, and what not.

Coming to the event, the performance of the team was once again, highly commendable. Out of the 100+ teams in the event, we managed a 23rd place finish in the endurance event, and stood 26th overall. Now I know it doesn’t sound anything great, but when one considers the fact that we managed to defeat 70 odd teams, most of which probably had access to much better infrastructure and funding than us, I believe its nothing short of a solid performance. Attaching pictures from the Auburn and India event:






The team has completed the design for the 2016 car, and cleared the virtual round of Baja with an overall 11th position out of the 450+ registered teams. We will begin fabricating the car very soon, and I shall try my best to keep updating this thread as the build progresses.
Thanks for reading!