PAC Baja Team

WHO WE ARE

The PAC Baja team is an extension project that seeks to empower in a personal and professional level students from Unesp Bauru, by the means of management and construction of a baja project.

WHAT IS BAJA?

The SAE project is a competition between the Engineering Higher Education Institutions which challenges students through the project and development of a off-road vehicle, in the category Mini Baja. But, after all, what is a baja?

Baja is a recreational, off the road, single-seater and robust prototype.  The vehicle, in addition to having traction on its two rear wheels, is safe, easily transported and simple to maintain and operate. It must be able to overcome rough terrain in any weather condition, without showing damage and/or defects.

OPERATION

The PAC Baja team consists of 47 members from the majors of Civil, Electrical and Mechanical Engineering, Computer Science, Public Relations, Design and Psychology. The project is divided into two sectors: administrative and projects, which contain other sub-sectors, being administrative: Finance, Quality, People Management, Technology Innovation, Public Relations and Marketing. And projects: Data Acquisition, Structural Calculation, Chassis and Composites, Design, Electronics, Brake, PowerTrain and Suspension and Steering.

Currently, the captain is Pedro Cosenza and the directors of the administration and projects sector are, respectively, Beatriz Marchesin and Gustavo Soares Silva.

OUR CIRCUIT BOARDS

Even though we are essentially a mechanical engineering project, we are highly dependent on electronic systems. On the race track, we need circuit boards in order to build a telemetry system and monitor our car needs, so we can always make the best decisions during the competition. Furthermore, even before the competitions, we need to ensure that our car behaves the way it was designed for, so we build circuit boards that help us run tests and validate our projects.

DATA ACQUISITION MODULE

It is a STM32 microcontroller-based system that allows the use of the sensors we need to run tests on our prototype. Through it, we can use inductive sensors, measure the rotation of the motor, get the readings of a load cell, use thermocouples and infrared temperature sensors to measure temperature from all sources, use accelerometers and other kinds of devices that use the I2C communication protocol, as well as other digital sensors. It also sends all the data we collect to a SD card module, so we can analyse it later, and features a buzzer, a LED indicator and a button for interface.

HAND PRESSURE METER

Using an Arduino, a multiplexer and 14 resistors to form voltage dividers, this board was designed to be used along with a glove which features 14 Force-Sensing Resistors (FSRs) on its palm. The goal is to analyse the pressure exerted by the pilot’s hands on different designs of steering wheels, in order to maximize the car ergonomics. 

STRAIN GAUGE MODULE

Extensometry is an engineering method used to measure mechanical stresses on elements. Through the use of resistive strain gauges (extensometers) placed onto the elements, and used to form a Wheatstone Bridge circuit, this board is used to amplify the low signals generated by the gauges, which are excited by forces applied on the analysed systems. The signals are submitted to analog circuits, and then read, processed and stored on an SD card, as well as transmitted directly to a PC, by an Arduino board.