What is Baja?

Baja SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers) is an intercollegiate design competition where students are tasked with designing, building, and racing a single-seat, all-terrain vehicle. The competition challenges students to apply engineering principles and innovative thinking to create a vehicle capable of navigating rugged off-road courses. Teams from universities around the world participate in regional and international competitions, showcasing their vehicles' design, performance, and durability. Baja SAE provides students with hands-on team-based experience with vehicle design and manufacturing, as well as practical engineering skills, preparing them for careers in the automotive industry.

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What We Do

MSU Baja begins its season with design work, addressing issues from previous competitions and developing innovative solutions. Utilizing software such as Siemens NX, Ansys Workbench, Fusion 360, and Altair Motionview, the team completes a new vehicle design. Once complete, manufacturing kicks off with the team constructing a new vehicle from scratch annually. The process begins by bending and notching chassis tubes in-house, then assembling and welding those tubes together according to the chassis model. Meanwhile, other subsystems machine components on mills and lathes, with more intricate parts precision machined on a CNC Mill. Once built, vehicle testing starts and the team ensures the vehicle meets vehicle performance and reliability targets. The season then culminates in competitions usually beginning by close of the spring semester.

The Competition

Michigan State University Baja participates in multiple competitions each year, organized by SAE to assess attending teams' engineering prowess. These competitions feature both static and dynamic events. Static events include the cost report, where teams aim for the most cost-effective design, sales presentation, where a business proposal is presented, and the design presentation, showcasing engineering development process. Dynamic events comprise of a hill climb or sled pull, an acceleration event, maneuverability course, suspension test, and a challenging 4-hour endurance race, which is the largest event. The wheel-to-wheel endurance race asseses both the speed and durability of each vehicle and surviving the race is often an accomplishment.

How To Join

Michigan State University Baja welcomes students from all majors, regardless of prior experience, we love to see hard-working individuals eager to learn. Recruitment takes place within the first few weeks of the fall semester, with extensive training provided for new members in the initial months. Prospective members can find the Baja Racing booth at Sparticipation or the engineering colloquium event, where they can join the team's email list for further communication. Alternatively, interested individuals can reach out via email at baja@msu.edu if they miss the recruiting events.