As Mason Hughes darted in and out of orange cones in a wobbly car on a makeshift test course set up Friday in a University of Akron parking lot, you could tell he was having a good time.
The car, called a baja, resembled a dune buggy or an off-road go-kart. Other cars like it, made by students at colleges worldwide, are used in international engineering competitions.
“It’s fun, there is no other way to describe it,” said Hughes, who is part of UA’s Zips Baja. The UA sophomore was test-driving new parts in an old vehicle that was created two years ago.
“It’s a four-hour endurance race, so you have to know how to maneuver turns and go over logs, trees and rocks,” Hughes said. “We use two drivers at two-hour intervals, pit four times and get gas every hour.”
Zips Baja is made up of about 20 undergraduates who design and create one car each year of their school career. From July to October they design the vehicle, and from November to March they make parts and put it together.
On Friday, some of the team members wore shirts that read, “1,000 [plus] hours to build, four hours to destroy” in reference to the competition.
The students use high-tech 3-D software to create the components for the vehicle. There are five design leaders, one each for steering, brakes, drivetrain (the one responsible for how much power they can get from the engine), frame and suspension design.
“These cars are a blast. We put a lot of hours in it, but getting behind the wheel for me is the most fun,” Hughes said. “I was testing it to see how it handles.”
The team was also testing the rear wheel hub, which cracked on the last test car during competition.
“We were able to redesign and take our lug nuts to a smaller size and shave off some extra weight,” said team co-captain Elizabeth Clifford, 20. “Two of our main machinists just finished that up. We are using the new parts. We do have to buy things like tires, shocks and the wheel of the tires, but we try to make 85 percent of the car’s parts, like the steering parts and suspension parts.”
Every team in the baja competition gets the same 10 horsepower engine. It cannot be modified; it is the only consistent element in the competitions.
Clifford said the UA team is trying something different this year — the car’s steering wheel will be made of carbon fiber, and the team is looking into aerodynamics as well.
Hughes, 20, of Alliance, is the lead welder of the design team. On the last test car used in competition, he put the entire frame together and the suspension components.
This weekend, the team will start working on the main frame of the new vehicle.
The team participates in three international competitions. They will race in Southern California, Kansas and Illinois in 2017.
“Each year we make one new car. Hopefully we’ll have all the components and tabs put back on the car and together by March in time for our first competition in April,” Clifford said. “The other competitions are in May and June. In July we start designing again for next year.”
UA’s engineering department has been designing the cars for 20 years. UA teams have placed in the top 10 overall out of 100 other vehicles over the years and came in third in 2015 in one of the races.
Team members took advantage of Friday’s 70-degree weather to test the vehicle.
“This is how we keep team morale up: We have fun days; we take the old cars out, and everybody on the team gets a chance to drive it,” said Clifford. “For the actual competition, the drivers have to go through time trials to qualify. Everybody will get a couple of trials, and the ones with the fastest average times get to be our drivers.”
When the suspension design leader, Zachary Gnabah, whose nickname is “Nascar,” took the wheel for a test-drive, he sped around the cones, knocking down a few and turning corners on three wheels.
“The back right wheel tire is wobbly like the rear end is chasing you and was jerky at times, so the bearings are sloppy,” Gnabah, 20, of Canton, said after his test-drive.
It was just one more thing the team would have to correct.
“We found that aluminum tie rods were better than steel ones, so we’re using those for the new car, and the new wheel hubs are working much better,” he said as he and other team members got back to work on their baja.
Marilyn Miller can be reached at 330-996-3098 or mmiller@thebeaconjournal.com.