By Nathan Inman
As the semester is entering the home stretch, so too is the newest vehicle build for Clemson Baja SAE. After months of designing, the vehicle is now in its final stages of the build phase as the team prepares to compete in a competition in New York this June.
The RHBSSI sat down with Nicholas Roessler, a freshman automotive engineering major and the team’s chassis lead and head welder, to discuss how the build has progressed over the semester.
“The new build’s coming along well,” he said. “We’re kind of in the final steps of welding together our chassis. Suspension is finally getting finalized, so we can start making the suspension and figuring out where it goes on the car.”
As the chassis lead, Roessler is responsible for ensuring the chassis meets the standards required for the vehicle to handle the rough terrain it will encounter in competition. If one thing went wrong with the chassis, it could derail the entire build.
With that in mind, Roessler said he understands the important responsibility placed upon him and is confident that the chassis will be able to handle whatever is thrown its way.
“Driver safety is the most important thing to us, 100%,” he said. “As I’m getting there, and as I’m designing the chassis, that’s the main thought. We really can’t chance having something break, and so structural integrity is definitely the most important thing.”
Roessler mentioned that throughout the semester, one particular challenge with the chassis has been making it entirely in-house. The team has primarily focused on not outsourcing any development and on making the vehicle entirely student-built.
“There’s a learning curve to kind of bending our own tubes, and there’s been a lot of mistakes actually putting the chassis together, but we’ve kind of got it figured out and on a roll,” he said.
When Clemson Baja last spoke with the RHBSSI, the team focused on a brand-new test track under construction for them to test their newest build right here in Clemson. Roessler says the track will help the team ensure all the pieces are in place for the build to hold together before they compete in June.
“It’ll probably be one of the most beneficial things that has happened for Baja in a long time, he said. “We’ll be able to actually test our vehicle, and that way, if anything fails, hopefully it fails with the shop five minutes away, and not in Rochester, New York.
As the build nears completion, the team has its sights set on June 11 for its first competition in Rochester with the new vehicle.
