Baja SAE Car Testing (Pics!)
 

Went out with a group of students from Cal Poly Pomona to do some testing on last year's Baja SAE car. We were looking for things to change for this year's car. It was a fun time!

Here are some pics: (click for the full size)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/08..._srr-test1.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/08...car-test12.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/08...car-test11.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/08...car-test10.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/08...car-test09.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/08...car-test08.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/08...car-test01.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/08...car-test02.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/08...car-test03.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/08...car-test04.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/08...car-test05.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/08...car-test06.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/08...car-test07.jpg

And a Video on YouTube:
My performance behind the wheel wasn't good, so I'm not going to be a driver, but I'm glad I got to drive a little. Now I want to build one for myself!

Are you going to be going to competitions? I see that you guys beat us (Oregon State) in Illinois last spring. Great to see what you guys are up to--I know I enjoy following the performance of my school's SAE teams--Baja and Formula (I dated a guy who was on the Formula team back in the day :D). It also looks like a lot of fun!

I'm going to the competition in Oregon this year. I'll be giving the Sales Presentation and Cost Report. (one area that last year's project fell way short in)

Looks like Oregon State tied for first in the Sales Presentation. I guess I'll have some competition! :D

I drove one of those things once. So much fun! I was an Formula SAE guy though :)

We were the first team to present a car from our university...on the one hand I was supremely jealous of other universities who had pedigree, history, and many previous designs to refine--on the other hand I think coming up with the entire car from scratch based on nothing but theory is probably a wholly different challenge, and I do not regret our undertaking.

Plus I got to engineer a really cool differential :)

This is very cool stuff to be involved with at the college level...being a motorhead, I'm sorry they didn't have this when I was in engineering school ...which must have been before they invented cars way back in 1968 to 1972.

Yea, I am very glad to have the experience of previous teams and cars. We were out with last year's car to figure out what to do better. Without that, it would be very, very hard to come up with the design for a car from nothing more than textbook knowledge.

Despite last year's success, the Cal Poly Baja project still has a lot of room to improve. I can only imagine what it was like when they first started.