MURFREESBORO, Tenn. — Team captain Sam
Fassnacht and other members of the MTSU Baja team have been putting final
touches on this year's off-road vehicle before heading to Illinois for the 2017
Baja SAE Collegiate Design Competition.
"What
we really need right now is the skilled part," said Fassnacht, an MTSU
senior from Alabama who’s majoring in electro-mechanical engineering
technology.
MTSU
hopes to drive out more than 100 competitors at the Baja Society of Automotive
Engineers, or SAE, regional contest set for Wednesday through Saturday, June 7-10,
at the Caterpillar Edwards Demonstration and Learning Center in Peoria,
Illinois.
Like
other competitors, the MTSU Baja team had to design, build and test an actual
open-air vehicle featuring roll bars. They will compete in a four-hour
endurance test in Illinois that involves obstacles that Fassnacht describes as
"wood-like and muddy," hoping that the improvements the team has made
on the vehicle will pay off.
According
to the Baja SAE website, “the object of the competition is to provide SAE
student members with a challenging project that involves the design, planning
and manufacturing tasks found when introducing a new product to the consumer
industrial market.”
The
MTSU team is part of the Department of Engineering Technology’s Experimental
Vehicles Program. The Baja squad has been working on the small buggy-like car
since fall at the Voorhies Engineering Technology facilities on campus, with a
total of two test runs out at the MTSU farm in Lascassas, Tennessee. Fassnacht
said the test runs proved important.
"The
first test run we had a really big problem,” he said. “Some of the tubing is
really thin so it sheared off, but since then we've added a whole bunch of
other things to improve this."
Although
he was part of the 2015 MTSU Baja design team, this will be the first time vice
captain Mikhail Ault-Normandie, a junior from Covington, Tennessee, will be
attending the event. The mechanical engineering major looks forward to
competing and has watched videos of past contests to make sure he is prepared.
And
this year’s team has made other adjustments to the car to comply with rule
changes since MTSU last competed two years ago.
"The
gas tank can no longer be attached to the engine anymore, so we had to make a
new bar and use support to the frame itself," Ault-Normandie said.
The
MTSU crew plans to leave Tuesday night and have been working into night in
recent weeks to fine tune the vehicle.
"As
long as nothing breaks I feel that we'll do well," Ault-Normandie said.
"I know a couple of years ago we were in the 40th place, so
maybe we can get somewhere up there a little bit higher than last time.”
Professor
Saeed Foroudastan, associate dean in the College of Basic and Applied Sciences,
serves as the university’s Experimental Vehicle Program’s faculty mentor and
adviser. Other members of the Baja team are students Tarq Alanazi, Talal
Aleisa, Dayana Edison, Syed Bukhari, David Hasty, Brad Hobbs, Korissas Earls,
and Joel Clements; and lab director Rick Taylor.
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