COEP team’s car wins Baja design contest

Pune, January 9 Beating teams from over 25 engineering colleges across the country, a team of 16 mechanical engineering students from the third and final years of the College of Engineering, Pune (COEP) emerged as the overall winner bagging three trophies and Rs 7 lakh in prize money, in the Baja (pronounced Baha) SAE India 2007 national competition held in the last week of December at Pithampur near Indore.

The COEP team also won the first prize in three different categories. Its vehicle completed the car race on the rugged track at the highest speed. Elated team leader Rahul Sarnobat told The Indian Express from Delhi: “It’s a great win. Our team slogged hard to design a good car and all our toils paid off. I am proud to win the national competition.” He said if everything went well, the team would participate in the Baja international competition to be held in the US or South Africa.

There was a lot of enthusiasm among the participants as the competition was held in India for the first time. Of the 25 participant colleges, six were from Maharashtra. The Modern Engineering College, run by the Progressive Education Society’s, had also been selected for Baja. Emitec Company sponsored the COEP vehicle named Nemesis.

Kapeesh Saraf, a team member, said: “We learnt a lot of things. We got an opportunity to meet top officials in the automobile industry and interact with them.”

Recounting how the team prepared the car model, he said: “Initially we were at sea on how to design the vehicle. We prepared ourselves through workshops, shared information and bridged the knowledge gap. March through April, we held brainstorming sessions. Thereafter, we plunged into the designing process, which took eight long months.”

The Baja competition is held in six countries — US, South Africa, South Korea, Mexico, Brazil and India. Until a few years ago, it was organised only in the US. The event in India was organised by the Society of Automotive Engineers India and Automotive Research Authority of India.

ARAI senior assistant director and convener of the contest K C Vora said: “Baja is a competition for undergraduate engineering students. The aim is to design, build, test, promote and race an off-road vehicle that will survive in the rough and robust terrain. Rs 20 lakh prize money was distributed in various categories. An objective was to bring about a paradigm shift in the mindset of youngsters and persuade them to opt for engineering rather than IT. There is a scarcity of engineers in the society at present and we want more youths to take up engineering.”