Haha, that's really interesting. I was part of my college Baja team doing data acquisition despite getting a mechanical engineering degree. My last year, they decided to make their axles out of aluminum and it was a trip to say the least. I remember them breaking a couple times during the competition and having to be rewelded by the one guy who could weld aluminum.
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Aluminum is a pretty terrible choice for axles. I would have been annoyed to have to do that.
My best friend did a lot of crazy stuff for his Baja team. He wishes I could have helped him with stuff, but I was too busy working 7 days a week at the time.
I had no say in that, lol. I was working on sensors so they could tune their CVT. All of the teams did crazy shit. It thought it was pretty cool. Plus the guys were fun to hang out with.
The greatest thing I saw was at competition, one team's front brakes were so powerful that during the brake test, they did a front wheelie so far I thought they'd flip all the way over, but they fell back and passed 😂
Those are called stoppies! You can do that in classic minis with aggressive front pads and sticky tires. LOL!
I love sensors and datalogging!