A picture of the team after our most recent competition, Baja SAE Williamsport
What We Do:
Terps Racing Baja SAE is an engineering project team that designs, builds, and races an off-road vehicle to compete in the SAE Collegiate Baja Design Series. The team provides hands-on engineering and project-based learning opportunities for 40 students annually. The design process goes through three stages of review before the final design is chosen: the Preliminary Review, the Critical Review, and the Final Review. Throughout this time, the team also modifies older cars in order to test new designs on prior years’ vehicles. Following the final review, the team moves into the build phase. The team continually innovates and improves, redesigning even the smallest components. The team balances hard work with a passion for their car and believes that passion makes a significant difference in the competition. The competition requires students to balance design and cost with dynamic performance while following strict safety guidelines and standardized rules. There are three North American competitions annually, each with 100 competing teams. The team strives to excel in all aspects of the competition and is committed to continuously pushing the boundaries of off-road vehicle design and engineering.
Our car for the 2022-23 season, TR23
Competition:
Dynamic Events
Dynamic events take place on the third and fourth days of competition. The third day is exclusively for time trials, where each car competes individually. Each team races their car through a number of events including a maneuverability course, an acceleration track, a hill climb or tractor pull event, and a special event specified for each competition (often suspension and traction or rock crawl). On the final day of competition, all participating teams race wheel-to-wheel in a four-hour endurance race, which tests the car’s durability and is worth the most points. This endurance race is the culmination of all the previous events and is the highlight of the competition
Our car from our 2024 season TR24 participating in a dynamic event at Baja SAE Williamsport
Static Events
The first day of competition consists of all the static events including a sales presentation, cost audit, design presentation, and technical inspection. During the sales presentation, teams market their car as a highly specialized vehicle to a series of industry judges. In the design presentation, teams present the design, research, and testing done throughout the year to technical judges. The car also undergoes a technical inspection, where judges inspect every aspect of the car to make sure it meets competition rules and specifications. On the second day of competition, teams present their design aspect of the competition and explain to judges what separates their car from the rest, what testing was done to drive decisions, and point out any other innovations.
TR22 at our competition in Butler, Pennsylvania