McMaster Baja Racing

McMaster Baja Racing (https://mcmasterbaja.ca/) is an undergrad student-led design team. Each year, we design, manufacture, and assemble a single seat off road vehicle to compete in the North American Baja SAE design series. Since 2007, we've built 17 different Baja cars, with 90% of our vehicle made completely in house by our team members! Our team is comprised of various engineering students, from mechanical to engineering physics.

At Baja SAE competitions, over 100 international university teams compete, providing stiff competition across dynamic events, a design presentation, and a four hour endurance race.

Our team has seen significant success in the past few years, and we're only improving. We saw top 10 finishes at both official SAE competitions this season, and secured 1st place in the Suspension & Traction event with our 2024 season car.

This year, our vehicle data acquisition sub-team is getting a huge redesign. We've re-designed our custom data-logging PCB, and focusing on getting solid, design-cycle ready data, such as suspension travel, CVT transmission RPM, and axle torque.

Our new motherboard uses a Teensy 4.1, and boasts 3 separate power rails (3.3V, 5V & 14.8V) to power any sensor we'd need. It's been designed in a way that lets us develop independent sensor logic modules, and plug those modules into our main board for rapid prototyping, improved troubleshooting, and enabling our team members to gain valuable design experience in PCB design with sensor systems. This helps our team work towards developing more complex PCBs and become better engineers of the future.

Currently, we've developed a sensor module for measuring our CVT transmission's primary and secondary RPM. Hall effect gear tooth sensors send signals to our module, which is then transmitted to the Teensy for processing.

The team would greatly benefit from PCBWay's support. Our Data Acquisition sub-team often faces challenges regarding funding, which seriously cuts into our prototyping capability.

Having access to quick prototyping capabilities would really allow our modular motherboard to shine; more PCB modules means more reliable data, quicker, and allows us to broaden our horizons with more sensor systems. PCBWay's support would enable our team to develop and acquire better data, which leads to a better car the next season.

As a team that never stops striving for the best, we're very excited for the opportunity to collaborate with PCBWay to achieve our goals and more through their kind support.