My SAEINDIA Baja 2011Experience

January 25^th through January 30^th at pithampur, Madhya Pradesh

Our All Terrain Vehicle was all ready to race !!!

But the emphasis is not to just build, but in fact the real meat of the event lies in the grand-day competition where after the 1700 college students from 80 colleges all across India landed at the venue to put their buggies through grueling tests which include Maneuverability, Straight Line Dynamics, Performance, Braking Prowess, Hill Climbing and a demanding two-and-a-half hour Endurance Race on the last day.  With a total of 1000 points spread across all the events.

In an effort to promote the cause of greener technologies, the theme for this competition was ‘Go Green’.

 

DAY 1

Team Vulcans had a pact with Team Holly Crank  for transporting their ATV.  The truck was set up to accommodate both vehicles to transport from Hyderabad to Pithampur.  During the transportation the truck allegedly met with an accident and thus left Team Vulcans’ buggy severely damaged in transit.  The following was the extent of damage recorded:

·             Broken Suspension Strut

·             Distortion of firewall

·             Broken rear bumper

·             On board fire extinguisher’s welds were detached

Upon receiving the vehicle at Pithampur on the evening of January 27^th the team was in complete disarray due to the condition of the vehicle.  Despite the mental trauma faced by the us, we did not fetter and worked all through the night into 28^th morning to fix all the problems and get the vehicle back into working condtion. :-)))

 

Day 2: January 28^th, 2011

The BAJA SAE INDIA 2011 event was inaugurated by India’s youngest Formula 1 driver and JK Tyre Brand Ambassador Karun Chandhok.

Now let me get into the details of the ceremony ....it might bore you... but please tolerate....

     Speaking at the inauguration, Mr. A S Mehta, Marketing Director, JK Tyre & Industries Ltd said, “We at JK Tyre are very delighted and privileged to be associated with this grand event. This event provides the best platform to engineering students across India to shape up their talent, polish their leadership skills, work as a team and grind their engineering and designing skills, which will thus give them a fair idea of learning the nuances of the corporate world.”

“As a company, we have always been investing heavily in promoting young talents through our association with motorsports. Today’s youth are the strength of our country and we will continue to be the principal sponsor in order to build talent profusely,” he further added.

Mr. Jugal K Mittal, Convenor JK Tyre BAJA SAE India said, “JK Tyre BAJA SAE India 2011 is evolving every year and this competition will indeed give India its future automotive engineers. The sponsorship for this competition has increased from 15 to 30. Manufacturing companies have also shown keen interest in Baja events and the highlight of this completion is the HR meet, where the manufacturers get the opportunity to recruit the best talent from across the country and the future automotive designers.”

“JK Tyre BAJA SAE INDIA is getting immense popularity and this competition is going strength to strength,” he further added.

Karun Chandhok, India’s youngest Formula 1 driver and JK Tyre Brand Ambassador lauded the student turnout for this year’s Baja SAE India 2011 competition. He said “It’s overwhelming to see colleges from different pockets of our country, showing some much interest to participate in this unique and interesting competition.”

After all these speeches were over, we headed to the pits, that were allotted to the teams .....

Inspectors specialized in fields like marketing, design, cost reporting, green innovation, ergonomics, etc. had come to inspect the vehicle personally.

After inspection, teams had to enroll themselves for the initial events.  17 teams were done with Static events tests; Team vulcans was late due to impending problems in getting the vehicle fixed on time and hence the team was asked to quit upon its failed to enroll into static events on that day.
This was the *first moment of sorrow to us.....

A Captain’s Meet was called which included more than 60 colleges, herein the organizing committee took decision that they had to enroll and be present at 8:30am the next day being January 29^th, 2011.

and then came the fun part ....

JK Tyre had organized a rock concert for the participants in the evening. Rock band Bandish performed live in front of over 2000 students who grooved to their beats and cheered for the performers.

 Day 3: January 29^th, 2011

Starting early at 8:30am Team Vulcans along with the other teams enrolled and successfully completed the following tests:

·            1)Maneuverability Test

...... here comes my fav pic.......! *the vehicle has to accelerate a quarter mile and on application of the brakes the vehicle should come to an instant halt at the line marking. The official inspector for this test quoted, that what ''one of the best brake tests I have recorded !!"

·              .
        2)Brake test

        3)Spill test

·              4)Fuel tank and engine inspection

A severe problem was faced by the team during the Fuel Tank and Engine Inspection, herein the fuel tank was reported to be unsafe by senior Technical Inspector Mr. Behram Dhabar, despite being approved by the remaining inspectors.
 

(According to the rules, one should not tamper with fuel tank. To accommodate the team’s green innovation component being the charcoal canister had to be directly connected to the fuel tank by opening up a vent within.  This vent had to be sealed upon being marked as unsafe by a technical inspector. A cock made of rubber had to be placed on the vent to permanently seal it.)
   
We used an adhesive to place this cock in place which according to the regulations was still an unsafe methodology and hence was again scrutinized to be unsafe by the inspector. 



Dhabbar mercilessly said a big "NO!!!" to our vehicle...

This was the *second moment of grief.....

Later that afternoon Me, Ruthwik and Prudhvi  had gone to give ''marketing presentation'', that we made it overnight during our train journey to Indore.... Ruthwik, my junior is an energetic boy....he took a great care to give the best to that presentation. *I can not forget the night, when me and ruthwiik( the nocturnal ) had a 3 hour long & loud discussion about many things(about the presentation too !!!:P), when all the passengers in the train were busy snoring.....*

Now seriouss!!  lemme get back to the event ......

and btw the amount of begging me and my captain KLN did that day....was Hilarious !!! we all were constantly binging the inspectors to approve our vehicle... I have never begged anyone to such an extent in my life...by forgetting the feeling of self respect and similar things. :D

FINALLY ...The same evening, Mr. Behram Dhabhar had agreed to approve the vehicle fit for the competition upon one condition being fulfilled i.e., the fuel tank be replaced with a new one. To the rescue of the team's dilemma was Team 51's fuel tank,...... a college from Pune had lent their fuel tank as they were disqualified.
 Thanks to the Fuel Tank donors....! hmmm and thanks to the incident too... as it gave me a prospect to bump into a sweet and talkative person from pune, who later became my very good friend :)

Speaking of Friends, my this blog post will go meaningless, if i forget to mention about the group from Gurunanak engg. college, Ludhiana !!  This team from Punjab had people who were immensely lively and helping .... I made good amount of friends here too... :-)  

 and yeahhh back to the point........  we had to make rapid changes by welding the new tank onto the vehicle.

A 2nd round of inspection revealed one more flaw; the fuel tank being gravity fed had an air pipe for proper flow of the fuel into the engine, the pipe connecting which was not properly fastened with restraints. The rule states that allowance of accessories coming from fuel chambers should not be anywhere near the firewall and beside the driver‟s cockpit. During inspection this pipe was again mercilessly pulled out by Mr. Dhabhar, and the modal was yet again disapproved.

This was the *third moment of sorrow.....

Battling these demands the team was given yet another chance to prove its worthiness for the race by once again working all through the night to make necessary amendments to be approved again in the morning for the final round of inspections on January 30th, 2011.

 *Quantum of solace* moment


Day 4: January 30th, 2011

RACE DAY

(The team made all the necessary readjustments. They worked all through the night to weld the new tank onto the vehicle. At 9 am sharp the Vehicle was tugged and pushed by the team to the final inspection position by Mr. Behram Dhabar; finally approved an hour before the Endurance Race started.)

Well the final 2and a half hours of Endurance Race from 11:30am through 2pm, under the direction of NATRIP, was promoted by JK Tyre and co-sponsored by Mahindra & Mahindra, Cummins India, BPCL, ITW Chemin, Kholer-Lombardini and others ...

Team Vulcans  vehicle could not make more than 4 and a half laps during the Endurance Event due to a sudden split in the rear propeller shaft rendering the vehicle stranded in the middle of the track to be towed aside  :(((

 But still ... I have no regrets... I appreciate my team's attempt and work.


GH Raisoni College of Engineering & Management, Pune; Team Speeding Saddles (5) managed to win the Endurance Race and also score the top points in the Acceleration Challenge.!

Now comes the interesting aspect of the whole happening.... The PRIZE DISTRIBUTION ceremony !!!

The Chief Guests to the event, Ambuj Sharma, Joint Secretary, Govt. of India, Ministry of Heavy Industries and young racing sensation Armaan Ebrahim also presented awards:

The students walked away not just with the excitement and a sense of accomplishment for having competed in such a testing event, but also a fair amount of the prize money as well........... The overall winners, Sant Longewal Institute of Engineering and Technology received Rs. 5 Lakh (Sponsored by ITW Chemin, Hyderabad) for taking the top honors and also an ATV from Powersports.

well my dear readers can you all guess the amount of total winnings... it was close to Rs. 40.5-lakh !!!!

I was sitting in the last row ..... admiring and applauding the achievers..
 and then came a jiff, which absolutely startled me... >>> Team Vulcan's name being announced for the runners-up, in the presentation category......  *awwwesome *

I had to first pinch myself to scrutinize my senses and then run to that incredible stage along with my fellow team mates...!! *Flashy smiles for the snaps and delighted hearts for the prize*

(After such an ordeal experience over the past 3 days and 3 sleepless nights to the utter astonishment of the team, Team Vulcans had earned itself an award of Rs. 40,000 as runner ups for its Marketing Presentation. It was also recorded as the only college from Andhra Pradesh to receive an award at the 2011 Baja SAEINDIA event.)