A team of MABE students will be traveling to Michigan to participate in the Baja SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers) Collegiate Design Series Competition in September, when they will test and race the off-road vehicle they built from scratch for their senior design project.
The competition challenges engineering students to conceive, design, manufacture, and fabricate a single-seat, off-road vehicle that can endure rough terrain and off-road conditions, then race the vehicle against other universities from all over the world without direct involvement from professional engineers, faculty, or professionals in the off-road and racing communities. The teams must follow strict rules and regulations set by SAE.
The MABE team, advised by Senior Lecturer Larry Sharpe, started designing its vehicle, which is similar in appearance to a dune buggy, last September and started building it in October. The team has spent close to 1,200 hours over the fall and spring semesters working on the vehicle so it would be finished in time to display at the Tickle College of Engineering’s Senior Design Showcase on May 3 and ready for the Baja competition.
“This project has been on a totally different scale from most other senior design projects,” said team leader Derrick Bailey. “For many other schools, a team as small as ours would be a subgroup working on just one component of the car, such as the brakes or the front suspension. However, even as a small team of six, we designed and manufactured an entire vehicle from scratch.”
In addition to Bailey, the MABE team includes Christian Ramsey, Easton Eller, Iman Ibrahim, Adam Schoolfield, and Mack Patrick. All are mechanical engineering majors except for Bailey, who is majoring in aerospace engineering.
“All our team members have worked around the clock tirelessly not only through regular meetings and school weeks, but through breaks and weekends too,” said Bailey. “This has been a very challenging project; however, I think that our tireless effort and hard work shine through in the craftsmanship of the car.”
The most challenging part for the team was designing a drive line for the vehicle that’s capable of four-wheel drive, which is mandated by SAE. Through a lot of careful planning and calculations they went above and beyond and designed the vehicle to be capable of front-wheel drive, rear-wheel drive, and all-wheel drive.
Like all other senior design projects, this one provided the students with hands-on, real-world engineering experience that will help prepare them for their future upon graduation.
“Many of our team had limited experience designing or fabricating vehicle parts, and this project provided plenty of opportunities for both,” said Bailey. “This project has been a massive undertaking that has required many project management skills, from budgeting and scheduling to documenting our progress and making the project a repeatable design. These skills will be very important in the engineering field as we move on from college into our future careers.”
Bailey, Schoolfield, and Patrick are graduating with their bachelor’s degrees in May, leaving Ramsey, Eller, and Ibrahim, who graduate in December, to represent MABE at the competition.
Contact
Kathy Williams (williamk@utk.edu)