Cornell Baja wins international contest

Baja vehicle
Ben Werner/Cornell Baja
Andrew Otto '12 drives the Cornell Baja racing vehicle, ML08.

The Cornell Baja SAE Racing Team, which designs, builds and races off-road vehicles, took first place at an international competition April 22.

The 35 students, mostly mechanical engineering majors, beat out close to 100 other student teams at the Baja SAE competition in Auburn, Ala.

In addition to a first-place overall finish, ML08, the team's latest vehicle, garnered success in dynamic and static judging events, placing third in overall design, first in suspension and traction, second in hill climb, second in acceleration, fourth in endurance and a perfect score on the cost report.

"During most of the year, everyone on the team is so focused on their highly technical individual projects," said Christopher Hendrix '12, Cornell Baja business team leader. "Before competition, though, we get to take a step back and see all of the parts come together into a cohesive vehicle. Coming back from competition with a first-place finish really validates all of the hard work we put in."

The team has been working on ML08 since last summer. For the past two months, while preparing for Alabama, they have been shadowed by Ithaca College students filming a documentary on the pressures and successes of a high-performance project team.

The film will be screened publicly May 5 at noon in Park Auditorium, Roy H. Park School of Communications at Ithaca College.

The team's final competition of the year will be June 7-10 in Burlington, Wis. Follow the team's progress on Twitter: @CUBaja.

 

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John Carberry