MOMENTUM - September 2023 - 13

STUDENT GENERATION
Michigan Baja Racing team with its first-place trophy at Baja SAE Wisconsin.
performed at the past few competitions, " said Cornell Baja
Racing team lead Will Gant. " Our consistent work throughout
last year made our top finishes achievable, and we could not be
more excited for the Ohio competition and to design and build
our 20th car. As a team, we take a 'one part at a time'
approach. At the start of the year, every member is given a
project to work on and see through to completion. "
In terms of engineering competence, " Our team is proudest
of our fully custom transmission, " said Gant. " Over the past 20
years of designing Baja vehicles, we have refined our
knowledge of CVT systems, which has been the key for our
consistent high performance at competition. After a complete
system redesign last year, we earned first place in acceleration.
In order to keep our momentum going forward this year, we
implemented a sled pull mode to our CVT, which allows us to
lock our CVT into its lowest ratio and thereby significantly
improve our car'ss performance in the Sled Pull Event while
maintaining our great Acceleration Event results. "
On the 2022-2023 Rochester Institute of Technology Baja
SAE team, treasurer Olivia Memmelaar had the largest hand in
top-3 finishes in the Cost Event at both the Oshkosh and
Oregon competitions. She also got her hands dirty performing
a wide variety of tasks for the car.
" We're definitely happy that we were able to put out a car
that performed in the Top 10 in both competitions so far, "
Memmelaar told MOMENTUM. " But we want to, and believe we
can, improve a lot more. I don't think the team will necessarily
ever be satisfied; we're always going to be pushing ourselves
to do better regardless of our scores in competition. RIT Baja
has a pretty significant history of doing very well at
competition, and this year we experienced a lot of difficulty.
But we are continually working to improve and have great
confidence that the lessons we learned this year will help us
improve on our performance for the 2024 competitions. We
made many mistakes this year, but took them as opportunities
to learn. "
Like many leaders of other teams, Memmelaar was reluctant
to tell MOMENTUM which part or system of the car the team is
most proud of.
She said: " RIT is definitely known for our S&T performances,
as I believe we were top 3 in the last two years at every race.
But I think we are proud of every component on our car, really.
Everything we design helps us become better engineers, which
MOMENTUM
ETS team celebrates victory at Baja SAE Oregon.
is why we are all part of a team like this. I think something that
we especially prided ourselves on this year that is most crucial
to team success is the atmosphere we've created around our
team. "
" We tried a lot of new things last year, and many of them
didn't pan out the way we hoped. But the amount that we
learned is going to heavily contribute to this year's car, "
Memmelaar continued. " Car-wise, we've looked into a million
things we can improve, and we intend on exploring all of them.
But I think we hope to continue to improve the team dynamic
that we have going on right now most. College is five years
(most of us are in five-year programs), and looking back years
later we're not going to remember every exact result from
races. But we'll always remember the funny memories that
come with being on this team. "
The Oregon State University team " was overjoyed with
placing 2nd overall at Baja SAE Oregon after a few seasons of
rebuilding the team from the ground up post-COVID, " said
team captain Caleb Sprengeler. " I am proud of the team's
dedication and unwavering spirit in the face of numerous
challenges throughout the season. "
The system of which the team prides itself most is the 4WD
system. " With the #23 car having a rear limited slip differential
and an open front differential, it allowed us to be able to
perform well in the tight corners of the Rock Crawl and
Maneuverability Events, " he explained. " Despite having to
perform a major repair on the driveshaft after Hill Climb, we
went on to achieve 1st place in Rock Crawl. "
Designed and manufactured fully in-house, the University of
Buffalo car's shocks are what the team is most proud of, said
UB SAE President Auburn R. Schwartzmeyer. " This design has
been several years in the making, and performed amazingly!
We have several improvements for our next iteration that are
already being designed and implemented this summer, but
we're proud of the first iteration's success. "
Like all teams, the Buffalo squad had to implement a 4WD
system, something Schwartzmeyer described as " incredibly
daunting. " Problems with the system prevented the team from
passing technical inspection at the Oshkosh competition, but
fixes allowed the team to subsequently compete in dynamic
events at the Oregon competition. Its best dynamic
performance was in the Maneuverability Event, with 58 out of a
possible 75 points. The team finished 45th overall. n
September 2023 13
MOMENTUM - September 2023

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