Baja Team (Business Writing Project)

 Baja Team Background:

The Ohio Northern Baja Team was established in 2009. An interesting fact about the team is that it competes nationally against schools in different divisions. Ohio Northern’s College of Engineering is the central location of the Baja Team. Throughout its time, the team has struggled to gain members with the intimidation factor of the tasks. The team is comprised of an executive board, which has a president, project manager, and treasurer; and a design team, which has a person dedicated to the frame, suspension/steering, ergonomics, brakes, data acquisition, and drivetrain. In total, the current group has eight members, which are mostly upperclassmen. The goal of the Baja Team is to simulate real-world engineering design projects and compete with their designs. The time commitment of any Baja Team is year-round. The team competes at SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers) Events during the summer, fall, and spring. The team has traveled across the country to states like Maryland, California, and Oregon. Covid-19 has had a great impact on the success of the Baja Team. An organization that depends greatly on in-person activities struggled to maintain its membership. How does an organization make an off-roading vehicle virtually? They attribute their great loss in membership to the pandemic. Now, they are working toward building awareness around the organization. The team is planning on competing at an SAE race in Rochester this June and in Arizona this fall. Assuming no road bumps pop up, they are on an uphill rise to continue their success.

 

Baja Events:

The Ohio Northern Baja team has participated in 26 events since they were founded in 2009. The highest the team has placed in an event was 2nd place at the Baja SAE Tennessee Tech in 2013. The most recent event the Baja team participated in was in Butler Pennsylvania at an unsanctioned event held by Grove city college where they placed 2nd. The SAE competitions can last 3-4 days. Day one is tech inspection, engine check, design presentation, and sales presentation. The tech and engine checks are an important part because the vehicle must fall into certain guidelines and if those are breached the team has to make the adjustments and try to get the car checked again. Day two is brake checks and 4-wheel drive checks. The practice track also opens on day two. This is an important time because the drivers can start to get a feel for the track they will be racing on. Day three is dedicated to Dynamic events which take the form of an obstacle course that is done individually by each team. The Dynamic event walkthrough takes place in the morning and the Dynamic events start in the late morning and last into the evening. Towards the end of day three, there is an Endurance Drivers meeting and they are allowed to walk the track. Day four is the final day and is dedicated to the Endurance event which is a multi-lap race featuring all the teams present. It starts with car gridding in the morning and then the Endurance event starts in the morning and lasts until early into the afternoon. After the Endurance event, the cars are inspected for a final time and then awards are presented and the event is over.

 

Baja History:

Many would believe that since the Ohio Northern Baja SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers) club has not gained much attention outside of those a part of the engineering community here on campus, the group has not had much success or any significant achievements since its inception. However, that is not the case at all. The ONU Baja club has actually had a rich history of placing and triumphing in different Baja SAE competitions across the United States. Since the Baja club’s establishment in 2009 till 2019 the group has placed top 50 one time, top 40 twice, top 30 five times, top 20 seven times, and top 10 an impressive eleven times. The team at the lowest has placed 46th in 2017 and has placed as high as 2nd in the 2013 competition. In 2011, the team was fortunate enough to win the Mike Schmidt Award, having them placed as the highest-ranking U.S. team in the event. With competitions regularly having 100 or more teams battling for the top spot, these placements and accomplishments are great for the ONU Baja club. Their resume truly speaks for itself. In terms of where the ONU Baja team has competed, they have been to several competitions across the U.S. including locations such as California, Rochester, Maryland, Kansas, Illinois, Tennessee, Auburn, Oregon, Washington, Tennessee Tech, Wisconsin, Birmingham, and Carolina. The team travels quite a bit, but nonetheless, they always come ready to compete when they arrive. As many do not know, Baja SAE clubs have been around for quite a bit of time. The Baja SAE competition originated in 1976 at the University of South Carolina, under the watch of Dr. Harit Mehta. Only 10 teams took part in the very first race. Since that time, the competition has significantly grown to become a premier engineering design series with over 110 university teams participating in each race. It is great to see how the Baja SAE community has grown globally over the years, and hopefully, our ONU Baja club’s recognition can do the same.

 

Plan for Awareness:

One of the glaring issues that the ONU Baja team struggles with is aware of their club. For as impressive of a club as they are, barely anyone knows about not only the accomplishments they've won but that they even exist. One way that most campus groups get their name out and show off what they have done is through the use of known and easy to reach social media platforms. ONU Baja technically does have social media and a website but these socials are not known by campus students and are not easy to reach. The website they have is very well done and updated frequently but they do not have it connected to anything that students would reach easily without lots of searching. They also have a Snapchat account that they use to talk about upcoming meetings or show off pictures and the progress of the car. This Snapchat is still active but hasn't posted anything since the fall semester of 2020. They also lack a personal Twitter or Instagram which could be used to display great pictures and updates from the building process as well as the competitions that they are participating in themselves but these are nonexistent. Our plan to help spread awareness for the awesome things this group does is to first look into changing the URL of this website to something easiest to search for and use key terms like “ONU” and “BAJA”. Past that the Baja team itself needs its own social media accounts like Instagram and Twitter and to use Snapchat more than they currently do. This socialism would be great at showing off the cool things Baja team members participate in and show off the members themselves. They also should link all of these together so people will be able to easily find information about the group on whatever site they look for them on, which also allows people ease of following all your accounts so they never miss an update on what the group is up to. ONU Baja is a very impressive group and deserves some recognition for what they do but if people don't even know they exist then how can they spread awareness for their group.