261 ORGANIZATIONS The Bison Baja team was a group made mostly of engineering students that designed and built a single-seat off-road vehicle each year. Once they had a finished product, the team went across the country to race their vehicle with schools from around the world. In the 2021 event in Tucson, Arizona, the Harding team made the first ever four-wheel drive vehicle for the competition and placed fourth overall and first in the four-hour long endurance race. Many changes were made to the competition for the 2022-23 season. First, four-wheel drive was required for all vehicles in the competition. Because the Harding team made four-wheel drive vehicles previously, this was not a challenge. The change that affected the team the most was that the competition made changes to the engine requirements. Previously, the team used a 10-horsepower engine provided by, but it was upped to 14-horsepower. Senior co-captain Ryan Hankins detailed how this impacted the team. “All of our testing from our nearly 10 years as a team doesn’t really help us anymore,” Hankins said. “We’re at a new beginning, so we have to really do our work and redesign the entire power train system of the vehicle as well as every other system to work with this new system that is a lot more robust.” The team planned to race in September in Tucson with the vehicle from the 2021-22 season, but because Baja Team Builds The Baja team gears up for their next competition but meets a disappointing setback. TEAMWORK Freshmen team members work on their vehicle’s production. They worked for the upcoming season in the Ulrey Engineering Shop. Photo by: Grace Hurt of the changes, the team decided to stop preparation on the vehicle for that event and focused all their efforts on the new specification. These challenges brought mixed emotions from the team. Junior Colton Mercer spoke about the team’s reaction to the news. “At first, it was pretty tough because we’ve already put in a lot of effort into competing in the September competition,” Mercer said. “We were disappointed, but it was also very exciting because we have a whole new set of rules and problems to fix. We got to completely start over, which sounds awful, but it was actually quite relieving that we get to all come up with our own decisions and come together to reach a goal.” Though these challenges made it more difficult for the team, adviser and shop coordinator Kent Miller was confident in the team’s ability to adapt and overcome. “Our team, though small, is made up of excellent engineers who are highly skilled in all areas of manufacturing and fabrication,” Miller said. “After our team interest meeting, we are excited about the number of students wanting to participate. We have changed the way our meetings look by offering structured training on Tuesday nights that will help pass on knowledge and ensure continued success in the future.” Written by: Ethan Conn
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NTc5NA==