Mahindra Baja SAEIndia 2020 concludes at Pithampur, Indore

The first leg of the 13th iteration of the Mahindra Baja SAE concluded yesterday, January 26, at the Natrax testing facility at Pithampur, near Indore. The four-day event ended with the Endurance race, a four-hour race through a challenging off-road course that included a water-crossing, a mix of sandy and gravel sections and some elevation changes.

Of the 253 teams who registered this year, each representing an engineering college, 86 teams made it to the Endurance round. This included the 120 eBaja teams, of which 10 made it to the final round. The eBaja is a competition to promote ideas and talent in the field of electric mobility. The organisers also announced that they were looking to begin an A-Baja classification. This will focus on autonomous cars, another upcoming tech discipline in the automotive world.

Winner mBAJA: Team Predators from DY Patil College of Engineering, Akurdi, Pune, wins mBAJA title at Mahindra presents BAJA SAEINDIA 2020, Pithampur

The Team Predators from DY Patil College of Engineering, Akurdi, Pune won the mBAJA title. The eBaja winners were Team E-Ziba Racers from Shri Vishnu Engineering College for Women, Andhra Pradesh. Team Aryans from Government College of Engineering, Aurangabad, Maharashtra and Team SparkX Racing from Silver Oak College of Engineering & Technology, Ahmedabad, Gujarat took second and third place respectively in mBAJA. The second spot in the eBaja competition went to Team Acrostreak from Acropolis Institute of Technology & Research, Indore.

All the teams had to create an off-road prototype vehicle which was safe, easily transportable and the winner would be chosen on the basis of the most distance covered in the four-hour period. The vehicles couldn't go faster than 60kmph, had to be CVT driven and had to have a full roll cage for the safety of the driver. We found that most teams chose a 10HP motor, mounted at the back, which fed power to the rear axle via the CVT gearbox. Teams were allowed to design their own transmissions but the motor was a stock 305cc petrol motor from Vanguard that made 10PS at 3,600rpm. The suspension set-up and axle architecture could be as per the students.

Before the final Endurance round which comprised the Durability Evaluation round, the teams had to first undergo a basic Static Evaluation round which comprised of design evaluation, cost evaluation and marketing presentation. After this, the teams presented the prototype, which was then followed by the Dynamic Evaluation round that tested the vehicles for acceleration, manoeuvrability, rock crawl and suspension and traction.

Winner eBAJA: Team E-Ziba Racers from Shri Vishnu Engineering College for Women, Andhra Pradesh wins eBAJA at Mahindra presents BAJA SAEINDIA 2020, Pithampur

Team Nemesis Racing from Government College of Engineering, Pune & Team Gyrfalcons from Modern Education Society's College of Engineering, Pune, bagged the Engineering Design Award for mBAJA and eBAJA respectively. Team Ziba Racers from Shri Vishnu Engineering College for Women (Autonomous) won the Go Green-Emissions Award. The total prize money was of Rs. 22.8 lakh. Further, on January 27 and 28, shortlisted students of the Baja Aptitude Test (BAT) will get an opportunity to be interviewed for employment with renowned organisations in the automotive sector. The selected engineers will get on the spot offer letters from the companies.

S. Balraj, Convener of Baja SAEINDIA 2020, said, "Baja SAEINDIA is a unique event as it not only provides aspiring engineers with a platform to highlight their design and engineering potential, but also gives the students an extended opportunity to jump out of the formal learning system and implement the fundamentals and concepts practically. I congratulate all the winners who performed to the best of their abilities."