The much awaited 13th edition of the Mahindra BAJA SAEINDIA 2020 at Pithampur finally came to an end today, leaving behind many exhilarating moments. A total of 76 out of 120 mBAJA teams and 10 out of 53 eBAJA teams participated in the endurance round.
Team E-Ziba Racers from Shri Vishnu Engineering College for Women, Andhra Pradesh was declared the ‘Best eBAJA Team’ and DY Patil College of Engineering, Akurdi, Pune was declared the ‘Best mBAJA Team’. The endurance event was flagged off by Dr. Pawan Goenka, Managing Director, Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd. & Chairman, Steering Committee – BAJA SAEINDIA, Dr. Bala Bharadvaj, President, SAEINDIA, Guest of Honour Ms. Gul Panag, Mr. Subhankar Sen, Chief General Manager, BPCL & Mr. Atul Bharat from host institute, Acropolis Institute of Technology & Research, Indore.
This was the sixth edition of eBAJA which aims to provide a platform to leverage the onset of Electric Mobility in India. The event saw participation from 4 colleges from Madhya Pradesh.
A total of 282 teams had registered in the 13th year of BAJA SAEINDIA series, out of which 253 (120 mBAJA and 53 eBAJA for Pithampur and 80 for Chitkara University) teams qualified for the finale. Total 86 teams (76 teams for mBAJA and 10 for eBAJA) made it to the Endurance round. This year was remarkable with more than 5000 students and faculty from different parts of the country celebrating the BAJA SAEINDIA 2020 theme ‘Breaking Conventions’.
Dr. Pawan Goenka, Managing Director, Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd. said, “Competitions such as BAJA SAEINDIA help students acquire much-needed real world experience, which is critical to their success as future engineers. BAJA SAEINDIA has proved to be a great platform for young budding engineers to explore and exhibit their engineering, technological skills, acquired during the academic tenure which is critical to their success in long term. I am sure that the experience gained thru this forum will be extremely valuable for all students in their future endeavours”.
Mr. S. Balraj, Convener, BAJA SAEINDIA 2020, said, “BAJA SAEINDIA is a unique event as it not only provides aspiring engineers with a platform to highlight their design and engineering potential, but also gives the students an extended opportunity to jump out of the formal learning system and implement the fundamentals and concepts practically. I congratulate all the winners who performed to the best of their abilities.”
Various other awards to the teams for static events were presented. Team Nemesis Racing from Government College of Engineering, Pune & Team Gyrfalcons from Modern Education Society’s College of Engineering, Pune bagged the Engineering Design Award for mBAJA and eBAJA respectively. Team Ziba Racers from Shri Vishnu Engineering College for Women (Autonomous) won the Go Green- Emissions Award. In addition to the total prize amount of Rs. 22.8 Lakhs for BAJA SAEINDIA 2020 Pithampur, the students walked away with excitement and a sense of accomplishment for having participated in such a competitive event.
The four-day event started with basic Static Evaluation round which comprised of design evaluation, cost evaluation and marketing presentation. In the final round, the teams showcased their prototype of a rugged single seat, off-road recreational four-wheel vehicle and were evaluated on various parameters, including engineering design, CAE, cost and technology innovation.
The objective of the competition was to simulate real world engineering design projects and their related challenges. Each team’s goal was to create a safe, easily transported, easily maintained and fun to drive prototype without any direct involvement from professional fabricators. However, the teams were free to design their own transmissions with the only restriction being the speed limit to 60 kmph. The Dynamic Evaluation Round tested the vehicles for acceleration, manoeuvrability, rock crawl and Suspension & Traction. Durability Evaluation Round saw the vehicles undergo endurance tests of two hours for eBAJA and four hours for mBAJA. The Endurance Event assessed each vehicle’s ability to operate continuously and at a speed over rough terrain containing various obstacles.
On 27th and 28th January 2020, the shortlisted students of BAJA Aptitude Test (BAT) will get an opportunity to be interviewed for employment with renowned organizations in the automotive sector. The selected engineers will get on the spot offer letters from the companies. The 2nd part of the 13th edition of BAJA SAEINDIA 2020 is scheduled at Chitkara University near Chandigarh from March 6 to March 9, 2020.
