SUCCESS DRIVEN Physics and engineering students form a team and compete in International Baja SAE Competition I n the spring, the Baja team built an off-road vehicle for Baja SAE, an intercollegiate competition hosted by SAE International. According to Associate Professor of Engineering Rich Wells, the team advisor, the team consisted of 11 members, including majors from the engineering, accounting and finance, marketing and education departments. This was Harding's first year competing in the Baja competition. Wells said the motivation behind starting the Baja team was to establish a viable engineering program at Harding to benefit the engineering students with extracurricular experience. "We were a young, small engineering department compared to others around the country," Wells said. "Having our students compete outside a Harding environment let us know how well our students were doing and the world know how great Harding engineering was." The students applied their knowledge and skills regarding the strength of parts, motion of linkages and computer simulations that they learned in the classroom during the design and construction processes. The Baja team started designing the all-terrain vehicle in the fall semester of 2012 and started building the car in the spring of 2013. Senior David Bell said that because it was Harding's first year, they had to build the car from scratch whereas other teams built upon their previous design. Baja SAE was an experience that challenged Harding's team due to the time constraint. "Waking up at 5 a.m. to work when we got behind schedule was difficult and took some dedication, but it had its rewarding moments when parts of the car could be seen coming together," Bell said. The team tested the car for the first time the day before its first competition at Tennessee Tech April 18. They also made alterations three times to pass technical inspection. The team placed 26th out of 100 at Tennessee. They also competed at Rochester, N.Y., in June. "I was not allowed to design or fabricate any parts," Wells said. "I gave advice. The students designed and built their own vehicle. The fact that they actually came in the top 25 in an international collegiate completion [in Rochester] said a lot about their capability." The program was beneficial to the students because it allowed them to gain a realistic experience that they could then apply to their internship credits and senior seminar courses. Senior Baja team member Corbin Fonville showed his excitement for the competition when he stated, "This was probably the biggest step the engineering department had taken since it started because it was the only real concrete measure we had against other schools." According to Fonville, Baja SAE consisted of promoting their car to a prospective company. Then they had to prove that they designed the car properly by showing and explaining their process. They also had to present their cost for constructing the car along with the production process. "It was a huge learning opportunity," Fonville said. "I was exposed to new situations that I was never exposed to in class and I actually had to build and test the thing." Because it was Harding's first year in the competition, the faculty and students were surprised at their success, placing 24th out of 100 in Rochester, N.Y., against other colleges and universities from around the world. Michael Wallace 11 TEAM MEMBERS cost to build the car:$9,980 247daysto4 departments build the car represented on team
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