From off-road racing to Google
Helping build and race a rugged little off-road racer internationally has helped students like Caleb Curtis prepare for their future careers.
Curtis, a 25-year-old mechanical engineering student at the University of New Brunswick, is the captain of the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) Baja club on UNB's Fredericton campus.
The club has built a small, single-seat Baja off-road racer engineered to be affordable yet able to survive the most punishing conditions.
"If you're in mechanical engineering, chances are you like building stuff," says Curtis.
The Baja club is also a great way to prepare to enter the workforce, he adds.
"I've got a job waiting for me when I graduate simply because of competitions like this," he says.
Curtis’ work in the Baja engineering club has helped drive his career into an interesting direction — working for Google Inc. in California. He’s spent the past few summers working at the Mount View, Calif. campus of the global search engine giant.
While at Google, Curtis worked with a group of a dozen or so mechanical engineers doing advanced research on cutting-edge technologies under the guidance of former astronaut Ed Lu.
“The work itself, and the work environment, is pretty much an engineering student's dream come true,” he says. “I was doing a lot of mechanical design and fabrication of prototypes.
“Right now I have an open invitation to return at my leisure."
A symbol of student ingenuity
The rugged little Baja buggy is a symbol of UNB student ingenuity, hard work and perseverance.
It's one way for mechanical engineering students at UNB to take what they've learned in the classroom and apply it to real-world situations.
Last spring the campus club competed in its first SAE international race in Tennessee using a vehicle they'd refined from team efforts over the past few years. The competition drew teams from 93 universities from North America and the world, with the UNB team finishing in the middle of the pack, an impressive feat for the rookie team.
Encouraging the next generation of mobility engineers
SAE is an international professional body for engineering professionals in the aerospace, automotive, and commercial vehicle industries. It develops standards for engineering all sorts of vehicles ranging from cars and trucks to boats and aircraft.
The society sponsors various kinds of college and university-level student competitions around the world, including the Baja off-road competition series as well as Formula race-car series, and a hybrid car design series. Students in the Baja competition must act as a team in order to design, build, test, promote a vehicle as well as find financial sponsors for their project all while still pursuing their education.
"What's interesting is not only does the vehicle have to handle well off-road, but it also has to be able to float and to navigate over water."
Off to Oregon in May
UNB's SAE Baja team is hoping to race again in the competition in Oregon in May.
They've already started refining their vehicle's design and seeking out sponsors. So far they've received support from Kiewitt Corp and the engineering endowment fund.
But they could use more help because traveling to Oregon will be expensive, says Curtis.
Getting the most out of their education at UNB
For Curtis and his team, the SAE Baja project isn't just extracurricular fun – it's an essential part of their education as engineers.
Some students get both practical experience and academic credits through the club by incorporating class design projects into the team's efforts.
"It's a big component that I think is missing from the mechanical engineering education at a lot of institutions. You do the book learning, but when it comes time to graduate, people say 'I don't know what I'm doing' because they haven't had a chance to put their knowledge into practice. At UNB, we do."
