Anteater Baja Racing

WHAT

• Co-lead the development of UCI Baja’s first composites program alongside an MSE peer. 

• Leverage unique material properties of composite materials (vs traditionally used aluminum and polyethylene) to achieve a high component strength-to-weight ratio.

• Develop repeatable manufacturing processes and document with Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs).

HOW

• Performed vacuum bagging and resin infusion procedures, identifying errors and developing process validation plans.

  • Two types of layups: Quasi-isotropic carbon fiber body panels, carbon and glass fiber hybrid sandwich panels

• Researched and wrote materials testing procedures to gather flexural data from several composite sandwich panel layups and improve the quality of our manufacturing processes.

• Designed 3D printed contoured tooling molds of nosecone and skidplate on SolidWorks.

• Designed and fitted all external body, skidplate, and number panels.

• Designed vehicle livery.

RESULTS

• Molds maintained rigid structural integrity under high-pressure vacuum bagging and ensured smooth surface finish on the contact face of the final cured part.

• Increased cured parts’ fiber-to-resin ratio by 35% and decreased production time by 75% over the course of a year.

WHAT

• Collaborate with eight other members on my subteam to design and construct a 4130 Chromoly chassis for the 2024 Baja SAE competition. 

• Prioritize precise and efficient manufacturing to optimize component mounting and integration for other subteams.

HOW

• Worked closely with one other teammate to design and fabricate wooden manufacturing jigs to ensure all major chassis dimensional tolerances within 1/8" of the SolidWorks CAD.

• Designed wooden panels on SolidWorks to be individually laser cut and slotted together for greatest geometric accuracy and with ample accessibility to each node for welds. 

• Adapted to PO mistake by cutting panels by hand using panel, jig, and band saws instead of laser cutting.

RESULTS

• Cut chassis manufacturing time nearly in half from 2023 competition vehicle.

• Imprecise manufacturing led to some dimensional tolerancing errors outside our desired margin, requiring readjustment of the members outside of the jigs.

• Chassis passed technical inspection and survived a full rollover during competition with no damage to either the vehicle or the driver.