The tyres were our team’s biggest drawback due to the very wet and muddy conditions that we are not used to. In spite of this the team did very well compared to the almost 80 teams that registered.

We won the Design judging finals and, after adding the design report score, we ended 6th overall in the design category. We also ended the sales presentation in 11th position. In spite of the tyres we managed 21st position for acceleration and 22nd position in the endurance race where we managed to complete 41 laps in 4 hours without any mechanical failure on the car.

We ended in 29th place overall out of 70 odd entries.

Even though we are very competitive in the local competition and we dominate most of the events, we realized that there is still a lot of room for improvement.  We have definitely learned valuable lessons and gained a lot of experience.

Please see http://bajasaeoregon.org/results-posted/ for the full summary of the results. Also check the FaceBook page at: https://www.facebook.com/BajaSaeOregon and http://www.joncurrierphotography.com/BusinessEvents/SAE-Collegiate-Design-Series/22802914_gLgqkP#!i=1831250917&k=km4bJZj for pictures.

We would like to thank all our sponsors and supporters for making this tour possible!!  We hope to do so again in future with even better results. TuksBaja will also be recruiting new members soon, so be ready to compete for your place on the team. South African competition in around the conner and will be prepared for anything!

Tuks BAJA

We passed the first engine check of the competition and the car is ready for day 2 of the competition that is the static judging.

Here is some fotos of the car and the A-team in Portland USA.

Go visit our facebook page for more fotos and updates of the competition.

Thanks for your support!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What we have been up to in the past few months

The 2011 Sasol Baja SAE South Africa race is just around the corner. The event will be held on 14 & 15 October at Gerotek in Pretoria. Get all the details here…

Note: All Submissions Must Be RECEIVED By the Deadline-NOT POSTMARKED

Registration – Opens FEBRUARY 1, 2011

Contact sinisa.bugarin@up.ac.za for a registration form

Early Registration Fee – Free

Early Registration deadline – 30 June 2011

Late Registration Fee -$500

Late Registration Deadline – 23 September 2011

Engine Orders – Free for local teams (contact organizer Sinisa Bugarin, sinisa.bugarin@up.ac.za)

Engine Order Deadline – Check with organizer website

DESIGN, COST AND ROLL CAGE REPORTS DUE – 23 September 2011

DESIGN, COST AND ROLL CAGE REPORTS (2 copies of each) ARE TO BE MAILED TO:

Sinisa Bugarin

University of Pretoria Main Campus

Department of Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering

Engineering 1 Building

Room 10-15

Lynnwood Road

Pretoria, 0002

South Africa

Rules questions and inquiries regarding the organization of the South African Baja SAE event specifically go to Sinisa Bugarin at: sinisa.bugarin@up.ac.za

For this reason, we are concentrating on this important aspect increasingly each year. We did a lot of planning and extensive research on the annual Baja Summer Camp and set our sights to achieve all the goals that we set.

The first priority for 2011 is to get our Plasma Cutter up and running. We as a team would like to do most of our manufacturing in-house in order to gain more experience and to keep costs as low as possible. The Plasma Cutter can aid us in cutting the necessary materials, like tubes and sheets, to manufacture the frame. This project requires programming, electronic- and mechanical knowledge. As soon as this project is finished, we can start building the frame. A CNC-mill is also in the pipe line. This will enable us to manufacture most of the high-tech parts like the hub-reduction casing and the reduction box.

The most challenging R&D task is the Electronic-CVT. We have done extensive research into this and believe it holds many promising advantages. The E-CVT will ultimately be able to control the primary and secondary CVT, thus controlling the CVT ratio very precisely. We can then set the ratio for each specific event to get more power and less speed for example in the skid-pull. This is a long term project and we would like to develop this in the next 2 to 4 years. Before we can do the design of the E-CVT, we have to build the CVT-Testbench.  On the CVT-Testbench we will be able to do testing and tuning while controlling most of the variables. The biggest problem with our testing thus far has been the various variables that are beyond our control. The CVT-Testbench will eliminate this problem and help us to understand the CVT much better than we do now. We aim to determine the ultimate CVT configuration in the end.

Over the Baja Summer Camp, a new question was raised as to whether we should continue using Chrome Moly for our frame or if we should use Domex. After research we found that Domex is much stronger than Chrome Moly and we started to search for Domex suppliers in South Africa. Unfortunately, we could not find a local supplier which supplies Domex tubing. Chrome Moly has luckily proven itself over the last year as we have done extensive reliability tests on the frame and we have not had any problems so far.

In order to do better research we have to educate and equip ourselves with the necessary tools. For this reason we are planning to do a course in the ADAMS-simulation software. This can aid us in simulating practically any component on the vehicle and thereby producing a better end-product. We would like to thank ESTEQ in advance for providing us with this opportunity.

All of these research and development projects would not have been possible if it weren’t for our sponsors and we would like to acknowledge all our sponsors for their support.

2012 TuksBaja Vehicle revealed

The 2012 season started with a slightly unexpected bang! The TuksBaja team is going to America for the international competition held in Portland, Oregon. After a lot of hard work and late nights the new 2012 TuksBaja vehicle was born and is now ready to take on any challenge in its way.

Here is the first photo of the NEW Baja 2012 vehicle!

Thank you to all who made this opportunity possible!

- AFRIT
                                              – A&R Engineering

- BPW
                                                            – Carab

- CSIR
                                                 – Investmech

- University of Pretoria

The 2010 season ended with some great results! Check it out:

2010

Please note the site is under HEAVY construction…

Sorry for keeping you waiting, but the new and improved site will blow your mind!

Please comment on the current progress

What would you like to see in the new website?