2018 Season Of Mahindra BAJA SAEINDIA Commences

BAJA, the automotive engineering competition where college teams vie to build and race the best single-seater four-wheeled all-terrain vehicles (ATVs), is back for its seventh season. Held by SAEINDIA, a professional Society of Engineers, in association with Mahindra and Mahindra, BAJA will actually see two events happening this year for the first time. The first finale of the two events will be held at the NATRIP facility at Pithampur near Indore, from 24th to 28th January; followed by IIT Ropar, Punjab, from March 8th to 11th March, 2018.

In the three-day BAJA SAEINDIA competition, engineering students compete to build working ATVs from scratch, going through the entire process of conceptualization, design, building, testing and validating, to finally proving its road- and race-worthiness. The three-day event sees these budding engineers going through rounds of rigorous testing in fields such as Technical Inspection, Static Evaluation such as Design, Cost & Sales Presentation and Dynamic Events such as Acceleration, Sledge Pull, Suspension-Traction & Manoeuvrability.

Last year, the event saw 388 entries, out of which 180 teams were shortlisted for conventional BAJA and 41 teams were shortlisted for eBAJA in the virtual round. This year sees around 400 entries, out of which almost 200 will make their way to the three-day event. As seen in the last few years, the maximum number of entries has been from the city of Pune, and the city has also won the maximum number of awards in the finales. Last year, the title prize was claimed by College of Engineering, Pune, followed by Alard College of Engineering, also from Pune. Singhad College of Engineering, Pune, was declared the winner of the ‘Best eBAJA Team’.

Originally conceptualized as Mini BAJA SAE in the US, the BAJA event has now spread to several countries around the globe. Supported by various international sponsors, it serves as a platform for young engineering students to showcase their automotive skills and acquire a real-life experience by conceiving, designing and fabricating an ATV.

Also noteworthy is eBAJA, an electric-only category which is aimed at spurring on the progress of EVs in the country. Eschewing the conventional internal combustion engine in favour of Li-ion battery packs, these ATVs are otherwise built on the same dynamics as the BAJA vehicles, and serve as a testament to the viability of EVs in the future.