Mahindra Baja Saeindia 2020 commences its 13th edition

Indore, September 19, 2019: SAEINDIA, a professional Society of Automotive Engineers under the Title sponsorship of Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd, today announced the commencement of the 13th edition of the much awaited BAJA series.
The finale will be held at the NATRIP, Pithampur near Indore from 23rd to 26th January 2020 and at Chitkara University, Chandigarh from 6th to 8th March 2020. Nearly 282 entries from 24 states were received for Baja Saeindia 2020 from colleges across India, out of which 200 teams were shortlisted for conventional BAJA and 56 teams were shortlisted for e-BAJA in the virtual round. Dr K C Vora, Sr Deputy Director of ARAI is the Chairman of the Organizing Committee, with S Balraj as Convener for Pithampur and Shoaib Sadiq as Convener for Chandigarh. Eminent personalities from the automotive and engineering industry will serve in the panel for the latest edition of Baja Saeindia.
8 colleges from Indore are among the 16 entries from Madhya Pradesh, that have qualified to the finale. For the last few editions of BAJA series, the maximum number of entries from Madhya Pradesh has been from the city of Indore. Colleges from Indore have won more awards in the finale since the last few years, including the Pride of Indore Award.
Baja Saeindia tasks the students to conceptualize, design, build, test & validate a single-seater four wheeled All-Terrain Vehicle (ATV) to take part in series of events spread across a course of 4 days. The event will include Technical Inspection, Static Evaluation such as Design, Cost & Sales Presentation and Dynamic Events such as Acceleration, Sledge Pull, Manoeuvrability. Suspension & Traction followed by an Endurance Event of 4 hours.
A remarkable feature unique to Baja Saeindia is the adoption of a new theme every year. This year, the theme for BAJA 2020 is ‘Breaking Conventions’, which celebrates BAJA, which, is all about challenging conventions, say it eBAJA or an all-girls team. The future of mobility looks unconventional today and the entire industry is facing uncertainty, Baja would like to leverage this opportunity and make these budding engineer’s future ready who could break the wall of conventional thinking & ideas and come up as glorified innovators, who would be lead the future of Mobility.
Baja Saeindia also initiated the eBAJA series in 2015, to leverage the onset of Electric Mobility in India. The conventional BAJA vehicles run on 10 HP Briggs & Stratton gasoline engine, common for all 200 mBAJA teams, whereas eBAJA vehicles will run on electric motor with 6 kW peak electric power, supported by a rechargeable lithium-ion battery pack. Here, the students are free to source the motor, controller & battery and design their own Battery Management System (BMS). Since last year, we have encouraged more students from Electrical & Electronic engineering field to participate in the event, considering the requirement of Human Resource for Electric Vehicles. To promote electric mobility and to develop human resource for working in this area, SAEINDIA has declared a financial support of Rs.50,000 to all the new eBAJA teams. SAEINDIA also supports diversity like teams from all states, more women engineers and more engineering students from the non-mechanical background.
For the BAJA finale, entries from engineering colleges from across the country were screened at the Virtual Round held at Chitkara University, Chandigarh in July 2019, where they presented their Designs for the BAJA Buggy vehicle that they wished to design for the final event.
The teams were judged & qualified based on various parameters in the virtual BAJA like knowledge of the rulebook, the concept of the buggy, the project plan, the design methodology, CAE Analysis, the Design Failure Mode & Effect Analysis (DFMEA) and Design Validation Plan (DVP), college workshop facilities and team formation, along with comprehensive online test tests related to Automotive Fundamentals and Baja Rule Book. The entries presented at the virtual BAJA were virtual mock-ups that would be created with exact specifications by the participants. The teams in the final round would showcase their skills, knowledge, creativity and passion for automobiles while having manufactured their own buggy race car.
The finale will be held at the NATRAX facility of NATRIP at Pithampur near Indore, from 23rd to 26th January 2020, followed by HR meet on 27th& 28th January 2020. The 2nd part of 13th edition of BAJA SAEINDIA 2020 is scheduled at Chitkara University, Chandigarh from 6th to 8th March 2020, followed by HR meet on 9th March 2020.