UA College of Engineering Students Race Mini-Baja Vehicle in Utah

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – The month of May can be stressful for seniors in mechanical engineering at The University of Alabama: studying for the final in the toughest class ever… making sure all relatives got their graduation invitations… looking for that first “real” job… racing a one-man Mini-Baja vehicle in an off-road course in Utah.

Wait, what was that last one?

Six mechanical engineering seniors competed in Provo, Utah May 6-12, racing a Mini-Baja vehicle on an off-road track as part of a senior design-class project. The students designed and built the Mini-Baja during the spring semester under project adviser Dr. Joey Parker, associate professor of mechanical engineering in UA’s College of Engineering.

The Society of Automotive Engineers, or SAE, sponsored the competition that simulates real-world engineering design projects and their related challenges. Students must function as a team to design, build, test, promote and race a vehicle within the limits of the rules. The object of the competition is to provide SAE student members with a challenging project that involves planning and manufacturing tasks found when introducing a new product to the consumer market.

UA students competed in three separate events, against more than 100 teams, and achieved their primary goal of completing the endurance portion of the race.

The Mini-Baja competition consisted of a four-hour endurance race and dynamic performance testing, like pulling, hill climbing and accelerating. Teams also wrote a technical report and gave a presentation to a jury of practicing engineers as though they were pitching a design to company executives.

The last time UA entered the SAE Mini Baja competition was in 2000, where a group modified a 1999 entry. Justin Wright, a mechanical engineering major from Trussville, Ala., and one of the six students on this year’s team, also helped with the 2000 modifications.

“The experience I received modifying the Baja in 2000 helped me when I was trying to get an internship,” Wright said. “Companies know this competition and look for students who have done this.” Wright used knowledge gained from that experience when he participated in a co-op program with Harley-Davidson Motor Co., at their testing field in Talladega, Ala., in 2001.

This type of training of the workforce makes Alabama even more attractive to the automotive industry, which is expanding rapidly in the state. “We’re giving students, who are about to be practicing engineers, issues they will be facing in these industries,” Parker added.

Along with Wright, Joey Glasgow of Northport, Brett Kelley of Gadsden, Jason Parham of Tuscaloosa, Roy Stanley of Tuscaloosa and Jeff Wright of Carbon Hill designed and built the Mini-Baja vehicle and traveled to Utah.

In 1837, UA became the first university in the state to offer engineering classes and was one of the first five in the nation to do so. Today, the College of Engineering, with about 1,900 students and more than 90 faculty, is one of the three oldest continuously operating engineering programs in the country and has been fully accredited since accreditation standards were implemented in the 1930s.

Note to Editor: Photos to accompany this release are available from Mary Wymer at mwymer@coe.eng.ua.edu.