Baja Rear Suspension

After joining the Baja team in first year as a power train member and continuing on the sub team for second year, I elected to move over to vehicle dynamics for year three. With upper years on the VD team leaving there was a sizable hole in the team, especially on projects related to rear suspension. After offering to take the lead on rear suspension for the year, I was met with a plethora of challenges ranging from project/team management, to design and manufacturing.

Working mainly on the control arms, the first half of the year was oriented around research and task delegation. Researching different suspension setups commonly used on Baja vehicles lead me down some deep rabbit holes in the field of off roading vehicle dynamics. Taking what I learned about different setups (i.e. full trailing arm, semi-trailing arm, double A-arm, and larger multilink setups) I synthesized the data and proposed my suggestions to the team leads. Choosing to settle with the double A-arm suspension, the rest of first term was dedicated to helping younger students with their research and preliminary CAD models.

Second semester saw the most challenges as the team's time was primarily spent on finalizing CAD and CAM files, and manufacturing. Over the course of second semester, I was fortunate enough to build on design skills in programs like SolidWorks and Mastercam, as well learn about and take part in the manufacturing of the rear suspension (cutting and coping tubes, jigging, an introduction to tig welding, and working with composites.