About Baja SAE

Baja SAE

Baja SAE® is an intercollegiate engineering design competition for undergraduate and graduate engineering students.  The object of the competition is to simulate real-world engineering design projects and their related challenges.  Each team is competing to have its design accepted for manufacture by a fictitous firm.  The students must function as a team to design, engineer, build, test, promote, and compete with a vehicle within the limits of the rules.  They must also generate financial support for their project and manage their educational priorities.

– Baja SAE® Program Objective

Notre Dame Baja

The University of Notre Dame Baja Team is dedicated to competing at the highest level of the Baja SAE competition.  The team members learn to apply their engineering education to a demanding project that requires strict time management, budgeting, team organization, precise design, and careful execution of the build. Through the process of taking a design from the concept stages to a tested and raced product, students learn what it takes to be successful in a competitive environment.

Notre Dame Baja Car in Action

To learn more about Baja SAE at Notre Dame, check out this video!

Compete, Survive, Win

The Baja SAE® competitions involve many dynamic events, such as acceleration,
maneuverability and suspension trials, but culminate in a 4-hour endurance race. The
overarching goal is to design and build a vehicle that will survive the punishment imposed
through 4 hours of negotiating this rough terrain, inclusive of logs, jumps, mud, rocks and
much more. Each race is limited to 100 schools, and only a small fraction of those complete
the full 4 hours.