The 2017 edition marked a decade of the Mahindra SAE BAJA India competition. The decade edition of the national-level inter-college event was held between February 15 and 18, 2017 at the Natrip’s facility in Pithampur, Indore. Like every year, the 2017 BAJA adopted the theme – “Decade of Dream, Dare and Drive”. The 10th edition witnessed a registration of 415 entries, out of which 185 teams qualified for the finale event, including 35 teams for eBAJA.
The four-day competition included technical specification of the off-road buggies built by the engineering students, its static evaluation such as – design, cost and sales representation, followed by a dynamic scrutiny which includes acceleration test, sled pull, suspension, traction and manoeuvrability. The teams then had to participate in an endurance race lasting two hours for eBAJA and four hours for mBAJA on the challenging track. This year was the third edition of eBAJA which saw participation from 29 colleges. However, only 8 colleges competed in the endurance round. In the mBAJA. on the other hand, 110 teams took the track for the endurance round. The teams were awarded in each testing category, upon the conclusion of the event, sponsored by 40 different benefactors. Mahindra was the title sponsor of the entire event.
The special highlight of the tenth edition of BAJA was the participation of first international team. A team from BITS Pilani Dubai Campus enthusiastically entered the competition but faced extreme difficulty getting their car on track after the brake callipers and fuel tank were damaged during transportation and customs.
At the end of the competition, car no.E153 of Sinhgad College of Engineering, Pune won the first prize overall in the eBAJA category, second to which was the car no.E170 from B.V. Bhoomraddi College of Engineering, Hubbali. Whereas the first prize for the mBAJA was bagged by car no.25 from College of Engineering, Pune. Second prize went to Alard College of Engineering, Pune whose car no.150 was impressive in the endurance race. Car no.50 of Dr. B. R. Ambedkar National Institute of Technology, Jalandhar settled for the third position.
Due to the increasing popularity and number of participation, which has increased tenfold since its inception, SAE BAJA will organise two events from next year onwards. The first one will continue to be at the current Pithampur venue, while the other one will make debut at IIT, Ropar in Punjab. The organisers believe this move will lend an opportunity to an additional 80-100 teams to participate and showcase their prowess in such a competitive event.
