DUT: 2007 MINI-BAJA DESIGN PROJECT

Durban University of Technology (DUT)
Department of Mechanical Engineering – Driving you into the future
2007 MINI-BAJA Design Project

It’s late nights and early mornings for Neel Hariram, Avishker Gungaram and Shane Haripersad, Final year students from the Mechanical Engineering Department as they prepare for the Sasol mini baja® challenge.

The mini baja® challenge takes place at the University of Pretoria each year, it requires entrants to build a single seat, four wheel, off road buggy called a baja. Each buggy has to be equipt with a standard 7.5KW engine as supplied by Briggs and Stratton, the design of the buggy is however left to the ingenuity of the competitors, providing it complies with the strict safety measures of the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE).

The event draws participants from both national and international tertiary institutions. Schalk Els an organizer of the Event at the University of Pretoria has described the event as, “complete engineering education, as it is a task that covers all the aspects of engineering from designing, manufacturing and marketing, which is something you won’t usually find in engineering courses.”
The object of the competition is to simulate real-world engineering design projects. Each team competes for acceptance of their design by a fictitious manufacturing firm. Students work together to design, build, test, promote and race a vehicle within the limits of the rules.Teams are responsible for raising funds to pay for the raw materials, component parts, tools, and any other expenses of production and competitions.

For comment, please contact Neel Hariram on 072 497 5203 or Professor Mervyn Kanny on 083 419 6238.

Issued by: Raylene Captain Hasthibeer
Manager: Communications