Baja NOW: Stout Race & Learning CAD

The start of November marks the transitioning focus of our team from racing to design. To start the month off right the team spent this Sunday teaching the new members how to use PTC Creo, the primary design software taught at the College of Engineering.

Rob Pohren leading the Creo learning session with help from Kayla Denson.

In honor of the UW-Stout Race last weekend, Rob decided to teach the members how to draw a ball bearing. Speaking of the Stout Race, here is the low down:

Car 33: This is the first time the car has run since the gear box failure at Nationals. Rob Pohren spent his summer re-designing new gears which were finished with fabrication a few weeks before the race. This was going to be the first real test for the car. 33 ended up coming into the pits quickly after the start because of a failure of the input gear. This was replaced and sent back out onto the track.

After intermission, 33 ran into some deep ruts causing the lower ball joint on the suspension to snap (can be seen at the end of the video below). This was replaced and 33 went back out until another one broke and the team decided to call that the end.

Car 48: At Midnight Mayhem 48’s output shaft broke and a replacement was quickly fabricated. There was no time for heat treatment so the output shaft was expected to last only a short time. And as expected the shaft broke within the first couple laps, in the pits it was quickly torn apart an a new one was welded in place. 48 lasted until almost the end of the first 2 hours, this was just long enough to get all the new members a chance to drive.

Car 88: Soon after the start of the race 88 came in to the pits because it wasn’t steering very well due to a small oversight. 88 was fixed and went back out on the track. It lasted till the second half of the race when the CV shaft snapped. It pulled into pits and got fixed up and went back out but then stripped the output shaft with 25 minutes left of the race.

Members getting ready to race and the start of the Stout.

That was a recap with Iowa Baja, we want to send a shoutout to The University of Iowa Mechanical Engineering Department, The Engineering Machine Shop, and Donohoo Steel Treating who all helped make this race possible.

Remember this Friday November 9th we will be hosting the 2018 Mississippi Valley Joint Sectional Meeting, you can still register until Monday a 1:00pm at the link below!

We are also hosting a the Baja Reunion Tailgate this Saturday! If you are interested in coming make sure you join the Facebook Event.