Team E-ZIBA Racers from Shri Vishnu college of Engineering clinched the first place in SAEINDIA e-BAJA 2020

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The ‘BijliWaliGaadi- Car No- E43’ won the e-BAJA SAE Event in an astounding way

A guest post by VINOD DUBEY

e-BAJA: When ever here we say “BijliWaliGaadi” then surely we refer to the vehicle which is powered by the ‘Bijli’ (a very well known word for the electricity in India). BAJA SAE India is also encouraging the college students to play around with the eBuggy by utilizing the engineering skill to participate in a national level racing event.

The 6th edition of e-BAJA concluded and winning title grabbed by girls’ team this year. Shri Vishnu college of Engineering for women won the Mahindra sponsored e-BAJA 2020 and runner up college is Acropolis institute of Technology and research, Indore.

e-BAJA gifts a lot of lifetime memory to the UG Students

The event started on 22^nd January with Baja HR Aptitude test (BAT) in which students get a chance to attend an interview of sponsored companies of BAJA Event.

Second day- 23rd January 2020, registration and static events were conducted. Third day- 24th January 2020, Dynamic events and final fourth day- 25th January, endurance run for e-Baja.

The theme for this year BAJA was “breaking conventions”. Out of 53 teams of e-Baja, only 10 teams made it possible to run their e-buggy on final day of the event. After the 4 hour endurance race, Shri Vishnu college of Engineering for women, proved their potential to be the best and  won the title of “BEST e-Baja team” 2020.

Here is all what you need to know about the event.

Society of Automotive Engineer (SAE) INDIA

SAEINDIA is India’s leading resource for mobility technology. As an individual member-driven society of mobility practitioners the ownership of SAEINDIA wrests with its members who are Individuals from the mobility community, which includes Engineers Executives from Industry, Government Officials, Academics and Students

SAEINDIA is a strategic alliance partner of SAE International registered in India as an Indian non-profit engineering and scientific society dedicated to the advancement of mobility industry in India. 

It conducts some engineering level events like Baja, supra etc. for UG students.

WHAT IS BAJA?

The event originally started in USA under SAE, and then came to India in 2007. The event mainly sponsored by Mahindra and Mahindra ltd offers a good platform to UG engineering student to participate and showcase their engineering skills. The main objective of each team to design and build a single seater 4-wheeled All-terrain vehicle (ATV) by building the prototype in CAD software and transforming the cad model into reality. The main aim of this event is to develop engineering skills and motivate the students to come-up with new innovation. After seeing the lot of participation in m-BAJA, e-BAJA started in 2015, under the urge of our former president, in order to promote greener energy. So, let’s discuss more about it,

E-BAJA, an intercollegiate event

E-BAJA is an intercollegiate event, to provide an industry based platform to college student to understand the application of engineering, utilize their bookish knowledge to think, design, innovate and build an electrified ATV from sketch to on road vehicle.

The rulebook of eBAJA

The rulebook is being issued each year to maintain the uniformity in vehicle performance parameters and dimension. While designing your buggy, no rules should be violated under any conditions. There will be technical inspection rounds at the college level as well to check build quality and planning of individual teams.

Teams participating in e-Baja have to use the rechargeable lithium ion batteries, generally taken from Mahindra Reva (now Mahindra Electric) but students are free to choose any type of electric powertrain.

Mahindra is also supporting students on installation of powertrain and encouraging students to increase the efficiency of vehicle.

Some industry experts and renowned personality of the automotive industry has quoted few things about Baja which is absolutely true.

Mr Shrikant Marathe, Director, ARAI said, “To meet Technology Road Map of India’s vision, we need lots of good engineers. This Human Resource can double up by encouraging women to enter into engineering. Baja is one such initiative, where we orient them towards STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics)”

Mr Sanjay Nibandhe, Convener for BAJA 2014 and DGM Proto Development, R & D, Nashik at Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd said, “BAJA SAEINDIA is a platform that offers students a chance to showcase their talent and skills in presence of auto experts in addition to presenting them with an opportunity to gain hands-on experience in the industry of which they aspire to be a part. Amongst the thrill and adventure, we assess the abilities of participants by testing them on parameters such as leadership skills and theoretical and practical knowledge.” 

How to participate in eBAJA?

If you are a undergraduate student from any college pursuing B.TECH/B.E, then your team can participate in this event after fulfilling some terms and conditions, which are as follows:

1. Your college must have SAEINDIA collegiate club.
2. All students must have SAEINDIA student membership to participate in any event conduct under the umbrella of SAE.
3. Make a team of maximum 25 members, and decide one team name.
4. Do the registration for first phase i.e. virtual in SAEINDIA website. Virtual BAJA is a screening round for main Baja.
5. After that, your team will be called for virtual round- you have to present your vehicle model to the panel, and on that basis, your team will get some score.
6. After virtual result, your team will have to do the registration for the main Baja event.
7. Manufacture your vehicle, go and participate.
8. Static and dynamic rounds will be there in main e-Baja, and you have to earn marks in each event.
9. At last endurance race, of 3 hours will be there, which have the maximum marks and will decide your winning probability.
10. The Awards for each event and overall winner will be announced at the last day.

Event location of e-BAJA

NATRAX, NATRIP PITHAMPUR INDORE, M.P- India

Award Category

• Static events: Engineering design, cost , CAE AWARD, Engineering Aesthetic, Build Quality, safe vehicle,
• Technology awards:  innovation award, Go green award
• Dynamic event award: Speed, manoeuvrability, Hill climb, suspension traction, raftar award, endurance.
• Other Awards: Pride of Indore award, Chairman Award, Dronacharya Award.
• Overall Awards: winner, 1st runner-up , 2nd runner up

Winners:

While pursuing your engineering degree, if you are getting a platform to showcase your talent, you must actively participate on those events.

Team e-ZIBA racers – because of their team work, hard work, creativity, innovative ideas, dedication, passion and dream to grab the title of e-BAJA, has made possible for them to win the event. Some of the winners in each category are listed below:

• Winner: Team E-ZIBA racers from Shri Vishnu college of Engineering, Andhra Pradesh wins the E-Baja 2020.
• Runner up: Acropolis Institute of Technology and research, Indore.
• Engineering Design Award: Team Gyrfalcons from Modern Education Society’s College of Engineering, Pune

#BijliWaliGaadi#eBAJA#Mahindra#BajaSAEIndia https://t.co/XksiNJqqzf

— Bijli Wali Gaadi (@BijliWaliGaadi) January 27, 2020

Why UG Engineering student should participate?

These types of events enhances the knowledge. It gives an opportunity to let you know the practicality of your ideas and the difficulties which occurred in transition of concept to reality. Above all, one knows about team management, time management, automobile tech knowledge and manufacturing process knowledge.

I would say, to check your concept, one must participate in these kind of events. This is complete package where you can implement all what you have learnt so far and will learn in the coming semester. Use all your concept and implement in real projects like this.

My Words

As a former participant of main Baja 2015, where my team has won BEST ENGINEERING DESIGN award, I personally recommend all the engineering student to participate in these kind of events. In my opinion, this is just a beginning. Mahindra and SAE India both together will take this e-BAJA event to the next level. The electric vehicle market is expanding. In the coming days the automotive industry will look for the graduates having knowledge about EVs technology. So, this is a good platform for all the college student.

These events develop interests to innovate something new, to compete with the world, to learn new technology, to keep yourself updated and last but not the least, time management, team work, hard-work and smart-work. You will learn many things in less time, some new software’s, new skills like marketability, and overall development of your personality.

So, automotive enthusiast, this is a great platform to work with future technology. Unleash your passion, break your limits and become a master in your field.