With COVID-19 precautions in place, Iowa Baja has finally resumed club activities! These last few weeks have been chaotic yet productive.

So what has Iowa Baja been up to?

…

A new season entails new members! Iowa Baja participated in The University of Iowa’s Virtual student organization fair held in early September. Though the fair was shifted into a virtual setting, we saw plenty of new faces that have become familiar within the past few weeks. Every week, a few hours of shop time are dedicated to introduce our new members to the shop setting and get them familiar with each Baja car in the shop.

New member Xavier Schario woking on car 51.

“Baja’s been a really good experience even with the COVID precautions. Even though we hold our weekly meetings over zoom, having in person shop times when everyone has to wear PPE and have a limited amount of people there, I feel like we still have plenty to do to in the shop”

— Xavier Schario (new member)

Iowa Baja’s executive board has made the decision to host large group meeting in a virtual format. These virtual meetings have been dedicated to teaching new and existing members about skills and features specific to our Baja Cars as well as what career paths are possible post-graduation.

So far during our virtual meetings, we have:

Learned about the drive train
Learned about front and rear suspension
Learned how to use a mill and lathe
Split up into design groups (including: Drivetrain, suspension, brakes, and ergonomics)
Hosted group CREO tutorials
Held resume overview sessions
Hosted Baja alumni and learned about their careers after college

“This year, shop times are a little different from previous years. Iowa Baja and the College of Engineering have worked hand in hand to make sure the safety and health are taken into consideration. While only 6 people are allowed in the shop at a time, work pace has not seemed to suffer too much and new members are having a lot more one on one time and learning what they want to learn than in years past.”

— Patrick Kelly (Safety Coordinator)

After learning new skills and features about the car on Wednesdays, we have been applying our knowledge to shop time

During shop in the past few weeks, we have been:

Working on rebuilding the gearbox of car 51 in hopes of competing at a regional race this spring
Building a new CV axle for car 48 after breaking it at last seasons MTU’s Baja Blizzard race
Finalizing designs for the nationals car and working on fabricating them for testing