Our Crowdfunding Groups
Who are we?
The Baja competition, organized by the Society of Automotive Engineers, challenges students with building a car capable of surviving the grueling tests of rough terrain: rocks, ditches, mud, creeks, loose dirt and gravel, drops, and jumps. Hundreds of schools compete from around the world, allowing students to come together as individuals, teams, and engineers to gain invaluable hands-on experience.
Our mission is to enrich the Northwestern experience through the production of a competitive off-road racing vehicle by inspiring creative automotive design, forging marketable leadership and technical skills, and building a close-knit engineering community.
Northwestern University Baja, founded in 1988, is the oldest vehicle team on campus, but has gone through some rough periods. After great success in the ’90s, we dissolved. But now, since our 2011 revitalization, we’ve built and raced three cars. This year we attended two competitions, one in Michigan with our old car, Knuckles, and one in Tennessee with our new car, Elbows. Our team has grown from 3 members to 28 in the last five years. With a larger team comes better and more challenging engineering.
Project overview:
This year we made some drastic changes to the car ranging from reducing frame weight to help with top speeds, to increasing the range of travel for suspension, to tuning our car for optimal acceleration. For next year we plan on keeping our frame and focusing on reducing weight and establishing a solid training program for our new members. The best way to reduce weight is to redesign components and test their failure methods. To train members (and build a car too) we need lots of materials. Our training program consists of teaching new members how to apply all the theoretical knowledge learned in the class to the real world. We teach design, manufacturing, and assembly. To do this, we need plenty of stock.
How you can help:
Like any group, we need money to run. We have an enormous project in front of us, and we need support throughout all stages. In addition to building a car, the team is also tackling the challenging logistics of improving our workspace on campus, of growing and educating our team, and of making our way to race with everything we need to be a legitimate competitor. For example, the raw aluminum used in each gearbox iteration costs $450. When you have to buy at least three times that to account for modifications or manufacturing errors, this amounts to almost $1,500. Now multiply this by about 20 to account for the other parts in our car and we’ve funded our project. In the past, our success as a team and individually has been hindered by a tight budget. We’re hoping you can help.
Our goal:
We hope to raise more than $8,000 through your generous support. This will cover the raw materials needed for the gearbox housing ($1,350), four newly designed hubs ($1,600), a complete carbon fibre shell ($1,200), and plenty of material for training ($1,000). We also have plenty of smaller bills including bolt orders, welding supplies, and all the safety equipment. Any additional funding past our goal can go toward the numerous other components on the car. The Motorcats sincerely appreciate anything you can contribute.
Let’s build a car!
$10 can buy us 100 bolts! We have thousands on the car, and every one counts.
Grease helps all of the parts move smoothly- from the CV joints to the steering rack, everything is better with grease. $20 makes a little bit go a very long way. Also here's a special shout out to seniors for the extra 16 cents to whisker the kittens.
Essentially everything on the car that's permanently fastened is welded. In order to do this, we need lots of tungsten electrodes and filler rod. This donation will provide enough to last about half a year!
One of our main focuses as a team is constantly learning new processes. Machinable Foam enables us to practice using advance machinery (such as manual and CNC mills) and teach our younger members how to do the same!
Sheet Metal goes into numerous aspects of the car, and is also used to train younger members in manufacturing. This contribution will help us obtain enough sheet metal to train 10 new members, or finish a large sheet metal component of the car, like the CVT guard.
Carbon Fiber is known for extreme lightness and strength; for that reason it's a great material to put on the car! With each passing year, we're increasing the amount of carbon fiber we use, and this will ensure we can continue doing just that!
We use large bricks of aluminum to machine our gearbox housing, and those add up fast! This contribution will ensure we can build a new gearbox next year.
Our entire frame is built from certified steel tubing to ensure the car's safety. The frame is the building block of our entire car, and without it we wouldn't exist.
