Sidhartha Pattnaik
Vice-Captain, CET-B Blue Jay Racing Team
B.Tech Student, Department of Mechanical Engineering, CET, Bhubaneswar
Society of Automotive Engineers
(SAE) organises an annual engineering design and fabrication competition called
BAJA where undergraduate engineering students design, innovate and fabricate an
All Terrain Vehicle. The Baja SAE competition
originated at the University of South Carolina in 1976, under the direction of
Dr. John F. Stevens. Since that time, the Baja SAE Series has grown to become a
premier engineering design series for university teams.
BAJA SAE INDIA is sponsored by Mahindra & Mahindra
Ltd., SAEINDIA and hosted by NATRiP. Every prestigious engineering college in
India participates in this competition. Yet due to some reasons, my college, College of Engineering and Technology,
Bhubaneswar had never participated in BAJA in the past. I and my branch mates Sohan Sarangi, Sanket Sourav Bal, Avinash Mohanty
and Rekhankit Sasmal along with some
seniors notably Late Viswa Ranjan Pati,
Bidit Mohanty, Anurag Kar and Nitin
Agarwal decided to change this once and for all. With encouragement and
constant support from our faculty advisors Dr.
S.K. Pradhan sir and Dr. S. S. Sahoo
sir, we decided to make the impossible, a reality. The epic journey started
with registration of members. We got a mammoth support from the students, with
90 registered members in SAE, our college was one of the largest chapters of
SAE in the region.
The work for Virtual Baja 2015 and Baja 2016 started
in January 2015. Regular WorkSessions, intense discussions etc created a frame
work for the future project. Work was on its full flow when we were struck by
the untimely death of our beloved senior Viswa Ranjan Pati. Making his dream
our goal, we dedicated the entire project to him and continued our endeavour.
The entire summer of May- June 2015 we sweated for 10
hours a day. Designs, analysis, re-design, re-analysis formed part of our
racing blood. As marketing and procurement team scanned every automotive
supplier and manufacturer for technical specifications the design team slogged
over the computers perfecting the Chassis and Suspension. While the analysis
team analysed each and every aspect of the vehicle, the management team was busy
coordinating every activity.
The notification for the first round
of BAJA, the Virtual Baja came on 10th June 2015. There were
numerous changes in rules, the total number of slides was cut down to 12 from
21 and a written test was introduced for all teams. We had to double our work
efficiency to accommodate the new rules. We named ourselves CET-B BLUE JAY RACING TEAM, after the
state bird of Odisha. Perfecting our designs and eliminating every flaw, every
glitch we submitted our presentation to BAJA SAE INDIA on 5th July
2015.
The Virtuals Baja was to be held at Chitkara
University, Chandigarh, hundreds of kilometres from Bhubaneswar. But as they
say “You have to travel countless miles for a dream”, I, Sohan, Sanket, Avinash
and Rekhankit (fondly called Rinku) set out for Virtual Baja 2015 on 8th
July 2015. We were allotted 10:00 AM slot on 10th July for the virtual
presentation before the judges. We took Rajdhani Express to Delhi on 8th
and reached Delhi on 9th July. Travelling from Delhi in Janshatabdi
Express we reached Chandigarh on 9th evening. Our faculty advisor,
Dr. S. S. Sahoo sir accompanied us in our endeavour. His tips, tricks and
support gave us encouragement throughout our journey.
Chitkara University was 30 Km from Chandigarh. With a
lot of hassle with the local autowallas reached the university at 9:30 PM. We
were given a decent accommodation at the University. The night before the
presentation was a long one. We were dead tired after travelling for 36 hours,
yet we practiced for the presentation all through the night. We slept around 3
in the morning and were up by 6:00 AM. We were quite nervous in the morning. Shouldering
the aspirations and expectations of an entire college, is not an easy burden. The
presence of Sudhansu sir helped us a lot. He constantly motivated us. 
We were allotted panel 3, room no. 3
in Edison block of the institute (yes their blocks are named as Edison,
Einstien, Newton, DeMorgan....). Teams were going in and coming out, some were
happy and many came out with sad faces. There were more than 500 teams from all
over India and only 100 will make it to the next round. We said to ourselves “Whatever
happens... we do our best!!”. Sir was there with us till our turn came. “CET
Blue Jay Racing Team!!” the volunteers called out. This was it! This was the
moment for which we had been working for the last six months. The volunteer led
us to panel 3. There were three judges, one was from Cummins and the others
were from some automotive company (we guessed from his questions!!). We had 15
Minutes to complete our presentation and 10 minutes for question-answer session.
Sohan, our captain started with the first slide introducing each one of us and
going in to the overall performance slide. Sanket, the technical lead presented
the design and steering slides, Rekankit handled the ANSYS slide, Avinash
presented the Suspension and transmission slides while Costing, weight analysis,
Project Planning and DFMEA was my part. Sohan concluded with the validation
slide. We had done our presentations even better than our practice sessions.
Every one aced their slides and we finished our presentation before “15 Minutes”
placard was up. With every slide we could see the appreciation in Judges’ eyes,
although we were ready for a grilling Q/A session. As expected, the judges
started with the least important of slides “Validation and testing” Slide,
Sohan having done his Maruti internship project on “validation and testing”
answered every question. Next they came on to suspension, Avinash aced the
round (Hats off to him...for handling our weakest link so effectively). Sanket
and Rekankit gave minute details of rollcage and rulebook guidelines. With more
than 4 minutes to go, the judges came to the DFMEA slide. Being a Six Sigma
Green Belt Professional and already having a research paper on DFMEA, I
answered all questions to their expectations. The Judges were thoroughly
impressed. They Said “Gud Job Guys!! Never expected so many specifics from a
first-timer new team.” That was it. We
had aced out presentations.
Outside, Sudhansu sir was still
there. He was so happy to hear us succeed. The written round was at 4:00 PM. We
had revised the rulebook thoroughly as well as other formulas of mechanical and
automobile engineering. There were 50 questions we answered most of them
correctly. After our exams we received our Virtual Participation certificates
and went to ISBT Chandigarh Bus Station. We took a bus from Chandigarh to
Delhi. The train from Delhi reached Bhubaneswar on 12th July. The results
are expected in 20 days and we hope to make it to the next round.
This trip taught us a lot of things.
Interacting with 500 odd teams all over India was an enriching experience.
Every team had their own innovative designs and specifications. Apart from
effective teamwork, time management and other things, one thing which we all
got was a Brotherhood. A trip where friends turned to brothers connected to
each other with a passion for racing, automobiles and innovation.
TEAM BLUE JAY RACING
1. Sohan Sarangi, Captain
2. Sidhartha Pattnaik, Vice-captain
3. Sanket Sourav Bal, Technical Lead
4. Avinash Mohanty, Marketing and Procurement Head & Driver
5. Rekankit Sasmal, Analysis Head
6. Raunak maharana, Design asst. Lead
7. Shubham Pati, Overall coordination, design and suspension
8. Debasis Bera, Design, Suspension and marketing
9. Swatantra Swaviman, Suspension Designer
10.Somia Tripathy, Chassis Designer
11. Pallavi saha, Transmission Expert
12. Dibyasha Mohanty, Documentation
13. Goutam behera, Design and analysis
14. Satrujit, Designer
15. Mohit, Braking
16. Shatam Patri, Marketing and Procurement
17. Himesh Chachra, Braking
18. Sumeet pati, Analysis
19. Gourav chaterjee, Marketing
20. Chaya K. das, marketing
21. Kamal, marketing
22. Suman Chand, Design, Performance
23. Manish karm Engine and Transmission
24. Sandeep Senapati, steering expert
25. Ram Manas, Validation
