By Dylan Borruso (Optical Engineering, ’19)
This past week the UR Baja SAE team moved from the Gavett Hall shop to a new shop in Taylor Hall. The new shop occupies the combined space of the old Taylor Hall student shop and an adjacent office and storage closet. With the move, the Baja team has expanded their in-shop access to machines. Specifically, the team has acquired a verticle bandsaw, mill, and lathe. All of these machines were previously housed in the old student shop.
Early planning for the move began in the spring of 2017. Over the summer, more concrete plans were developed and meetings with the University of Rochester administration were held to determine the exact requirements of the Baja team. The plans were finalized late in the summer and construction began at the beginning of September. The final touches were finished on November 3rd. Over the next two weeks, the equipment from the Gavett Hall shop was packed into more than 40 boxes and transferred, along with all of the tables, shelves, cabinets, and toolboxes to the new Baja shop.
The new shop, with 24/7 access to machinery, will allow the Baja team to continue to reliably manufacture important components of the car in-house. The addition of the verticle bandsaw is also a huge improvement to the last shop and allows the team to fabricate plastic and aluminum components without having to cut them by hand.