Engineering Now :: Volume 6 - Edition 5 :: March 2009

Western Engineering Baja SAE team update

By Nancy Quaegebeur
Baja SAE

The Western Baja SAE Team appeared on A News the morning of January 12, 2009. [watch the video].

The Western Engineering Baja SAE team has been active as an extra-curricular Collegiate Design Series team since 2002. Prior to that, the team was designated as a fourth-year project team.

Baja SAE can compete in three regional competitions that simulate real-world engineering design projects and their related challenges. Engineering students are given the task to design and build an off-road vehicle that will survive the severe punishment of rough terrain, and in the East competition-water. The objective of these competitions is to provide SAE teams with the challenge of planning and manufacturing tasks found when introducing a new product to the consumer industrial market. Teams compete against one another to have their design accepted for manufacture by a fictitious firm.

Since becoming an extracurricular design team, the Western Engineering Baja SAE team has experienced great success. The team’s best showing was in 2000 where they placed 18th out of 106 teams. They have also reached other milestones including, in 2004, the East team placed 10th in design and18th overall out of 62 competitors. They have continued their success this year at the 2009 Winter Baja competition. Five team members, including Lucas Walker (Administrative Manager), Daniel Currie (Technical Manager), Grace Sham, Thomas Butler, and Jon Vallance, traveled from Western to Houghton, Michigan to participate in the competition held at Michigan Tech University on February 14, 2009. A total of 39 teams came together to showcase their projects and skills. After troubleshooting several issues, the team put forth a fabulous effort to finish 35 out of 39. Following the event, team member Grace Sham explained, “Although we ran into a few problems along the way, the competition was a lot of fun.”

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Contact

.: Allison Stevenson
Spencer Engineering Building, Room 2074
Phone: (519) 850-2917 Fax: (519) 661-3808
contactwe@eng.uwo.ca