• PROJECT DESCRIPTION

  • INTRODUCTION:

    The Notre Dame Baja team is a Baja car design team staffed with Notre Dame students that designs and races their own Baja vehicle against other colleges around the country. These competitions consist of a variety of scoring areas, including dynamic events, such as hill climbs and maneuverability events, and static events, such as design evaluations and presentations. Historically the Notre Dame team has performed very well, finishing 32nd out of 118 teams in 2012 at their annual competition in Peoria, Illinois. The team is shooting for a top-10 finish this summer at the competition in Peoria, Illinois.

  • PROBLEM:

    One aspect of the judging that the Baja team is looking to improve on is their electrical design. The Baja team hopes to add a user-friendly instrumentation system that will both help them score more points with the judges and also help them justify their design choices. Our senior design team plans to take on this challenge to help the Notre Dame Baja team reach its goal for the competition in June 2014.

    Our team is responsible for installing the electrical system for the Baja car. Our final system will address the issues in checking and monitoring the engine and wheel speed, locating the Baja car in a race track, and storing the data to update the performance of the car. The system must also contain a way of tracking and recording lap times, and must provide all of the information to the driver in a legible manner. Because the car will be competing in a muddy racing environment and judged on a number of factors, there are also many other considerations we must overcome.

  • PROPOSED SOLUTION:

    Our solution will be mounted in the Baja car and will consist of several different components. First of all, our solution will require a number of sensors to monitor the specific metrics the Baja team wants to track. These sensors will feed data into a central unit, probably mounted next to or in front of the driver. It is important that the central unit is near the driver because it will also house a monitor on which the driver can view vehicle performance and track lap data. After use, the central console can be detached from the vehicle and taken inside for data extraction. As track conditions are unknown but presumed muddy, the proposed solution must also be water and mud-proof, so as is can survive in the race environment.