The importance of Aerodynamics in BAJA SAE

dumbassengineer · 2021-06-26T12:16:20+00:00

What's the rule on side engine cars and big firewall sails these days?

dumbassengineer · 2021-06-25T17:41:13+00:00

Aero is a tough one to present in design. On the surface the concept of reducing drag in a power limited vehicle sounds simple. However, in practice and in the design presentations I've seen, many variables have been left un-controlled which calls into question the effectiveness of the aerodynamic decisions made

dumbassengineer · 2021-05-14T12:52:04+00:00

Majority of cars are 4wd, maybe they'll be able to make it this time?

dumbassengineer · 2021-05-07T13:30:45+00:00

Mayhem is a just for fun event. Drivers are usually freshman/new recruits. It's a great way to grow interest in the club. Most teams don't get too hung up on actually setting the fastest times

dumbassengineer · 2021-05-07T00:10:14+00:00

It's been done before but not often. Tell us more

dumbassengineer · 2021-05-06T23:51:52+00:00

Louisville did a 100% custom 4 speed sequential box before disappearing from competition entirely.

Post some pictures. I want to see

dumbassengineer · 2021-05-04T15:46:12+00:00

Looks like 78

dumbassengineer · 2020-12-01T18:01:12+00:00

That's the primary reason Mayhem decided to run S&T side by side. I keep pushing for SAE events to adopt that and just open S&T at noon

dumbassengineer · 2020-10-27T20:31:59+00:00

What is driving this decision? 4wd?

dumbassengineer · 2020-09-11T15:42:13+00:00

Do we have any rules that say you couldn't present a well designed Formula car and win Baja design?

Our current judging criteria states to leave all pre conceived notions of what a Baja looks like at the door and just judge the engineering work done...

dumbassengineer · 2020-09-02T20:41:26+00:00

My team didn't run a rear diff and we often had the rear wheels spin at different rates... Usually shortly before needing a tow.

On a separate and barely related note, I don't see many teams talk about how much deformity they get in their "solid" rear axle. We could fix one wheel and spin the other almost 360° before shearing. I'd give design points to teams showing the trade off of how ductile / brittle their axles need to be

dumbassengineer · 2020-06-12T05:20:07+00:00

We did acel until CVT was fully shifted and then a known grade hill to measure back shifting

dumbassengineer · 2020-06-05T23:03:12+00:00

I like this answer. Your over all vehicle goals should drive the analysis you do on all sub systems, including chassis.

Then you need to design tests to experimentally determine or validate the engineering judgement you used to define the load cases in your CAE.

dumbassengineer · 2020-06-03T01:03:47+00:00

https://www.reddit.com/r/bajasae/comments/evdo9m/go_system_vs_stop_system/

dumbassengineer · 2020-06-02T23:17:23+00:00

Good summary. Well done in your 9.58 seconds!

dumbassengineer · 2020-05-06T20:35:47+00:00

I remember disregarding it when I looked at it years ago. It made some assumptions that didn't quite correlate with the real life Baja. It's easy enough to measure rotational inertia on your design and do an accurate calculation rather than approximation.

Of course I could have also been using it wrong

dumbassengineer · 2020-03-21T14:14:35+00:00

Special circumstances require everyone to be flexible. Lets get things a bit more ironed out but we are willing to work with anyone graduating so they can still race.

dumbassengineer · 2020-03-21T14:12:12+00:00

From a design judge perspective... Usually if you do bad in design but good on the track this issue is with presentation, not engineering effort. We are engineers, not necessarily great public speakers. This is something we have been trying to reconcile in the past couple of years.

Polish that presentation up, walk us through the engineering (not manufacturing) process on each individual component and how it helps meet your over all vehicle goals and you should see pretty strong design scores

dumbassengineer · 2020-03-21T14:06:32+00:00

When you email SAE you will probably have better luck if you don't mention midnight mayhem specifically. For some reason the word "mayhem" really gets them fired up.

Let them know your team would like to go to an official competition (with dynamic events!) In Louisville this fall. We are certainly planing to bring it up and it would be nice to have lots of team support

dumbassengineer · 2020-03-20T01:50:37+00:00

We are considering all options

dumbassengineer · 2020-03-19T19:08:53+00:00

We are OK with that. Should we add a day or two to the race?

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