{"id":14992,"date":"2018-02-21T15:42:22","date_gmt":"2018-02-21T19:42:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sa.rochester.edu\/baja\/?p=14992"},"modified":"2018-02-21T15:53:29","modified_gmt":"2018-02-21T19:53:29","slug":"the-miracle-of-baja","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sa.rochester.edu\/baja\/2018\/02\/the-miracle-of-baja\/","title":{"rendered":"THE MIRACLE OF BAJA"},"content":{"rendered":"

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By Harris Mandell (Mechanical Engineering, \u201921)<\/em><\/p>\n

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I was first introduced to Baja SAE while passing by one of the cars in the Rettner Atrium on an engineering tour of the university. I have always been a big fan of automotive engineering and racing. One of my favorite races has always been the Baja 1000, a high-speed off-road race through the desert of the Baja California Peninsula that pushes the limits of engineering and driver skill. When I discovered that there was a club at the University of Rochester that was based on this event, I wanted in immediately. I was told that nearly all the design, fabrication, and testing was done by undergraduate students. At that moment, that was very hard to believe. There was no way a group of undergraduate students could possibly understand all the intricacies of designing and fabricating a fully functioning race car. Several months later when I arrived on campus I learned that I was completely wrong.<\/p>\n

I learned that something really special happens at this club. It all starts with a common goal: designing and building a single-seater off-road race car each year to compete in competitions across the nation. When that goal is presented to a bunch of passionate, solution-oriented people and after some research and trial and error, a race car pops out. I think what makes the club so successful is that everyone brings their personal experiences, skill sets, ambition, and work ethic to the table. Additionally, despite being a complex engineering project, absolutely no prior knowledge or experience was required. You don\u2019t even have to be an engineer to join! I was amazed by that, and the fact that it was easy to hop in and get caught up to speed on current projects and goals.<\/p>\n

The 2017-2018 season has been an amazing experience thus far. I have had the chance to really challenge myself, apply what I know, and acquire new knowledge and skills such as machining, welding, and computer-aided design. I find it to be the perfect complement to the academic work I do during the week. I really look forward to the upcoming competitions this spring and the future seasons to come.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Harris Mandell (Mechanical Engineering, \u201921) I was first introduced to Baja SAE while passing by one of the cars in the Rettner Atrium on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":92,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[282],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14992","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sa.rochester.edu\/baja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14992","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sa.rochester.edu\/baja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sa.rochester.edu\/baja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sa.rochester.edu\/baja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/92"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sa.rochester.edu\/baja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14992"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sa.rochester.edu\/baja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14992\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15082,"href":"https:\/\/sa.rochester.edu\/baja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14992\/revisions\/15082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sa.rochester.edu\/baja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14992"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sa.rochester.edu\/baja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14992"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sa.rochester.edu\/baja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14992"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}