Senior Design Project

[RyanbabZ71]

Ok next semester i am starting senior design

 

This semester i have a buddy who is doing a mini baja car.  It wont be totally complete and they need people to take it over and I am wanting to.  Looks fun.  They are competing in milwaukee the last weekend in May and i may go to check it out.  

 

Next problem is funding they are running low on funds and if i take it over i wanna start looking this summer.  Any suggestions on getting funding.  Anyone ever go through this?

 

Here is the link for the competition

 

http://www.sae.org/students/minibaja.htm

[ekonk]

Try to send letters to as many local engineering or automotive-related companies that you can find.  That's what the guys that did FormulaSAE here did a couple years ago.  They also got some private funding (one of the guys got a significant amount from his ex-girlfriend's father).  Also try national companies that make or sell automotive products, such as K&N, Koni Shocks, Bridgestone/Firestone (just don't take their tires  :0 )  Probably the best strategy is to try to get a little from a lot of companies.  Good Luck.

[Jpshostr]

Here at the U of Illinois I am very involved in our Quarter Scale tractor design team.  There is also a Mini-Baja team that is made up of AgEs, TSM, and mechanical engineers that works out of our building.  This mini-baja team is the exact thing you are talking about, same competition, etc.  I don't know for sure where exactly their funding comes from, but for us we hit every business in the area that would have any interest at all.  We also hit up the faculty and past students.  The budget for this is quite large, our tractor team is $20K a year or so, mini-baja is similar.  

 

Get involved in this!  It is a lot of fun and a real world application of what you've learned.

[Firetiger(MN)]

My senior design class had projects that were funded by the sponsor who wanted the design.  If you wanted to design your own project, you had to come up with the funds yourself.  We chose a sponsored project so we didn't have to bother with funding, although we did have a budget.  It was a lot of fun and we got to finally use the 4+ years of bookwork.

[chevy4x4trucks]

They are competing in milwaukee the last weekend in May and i may go to check it out.

Milwaukee eh.  Let me know if you go and what time I'll meet you down there.

[RyanbabZ71]

I plan on being up there.  Dont know what time but ill probably be around there on June 1st

[Kansas Kid]

I have to say I agree with Firetiger in choosing a senior project that is already funded by a sponser.  If you end up not getting enough funding for your own project, you might get stuck with a bit of a bill to pay.  Either that or not complete the project.

 

How many people are you planning on having work with you on this project?  On the mini-baja project here at school they have about 15 people working on two cars. (rebuilding one, staring from scratch on the other).  From what I have seen and heard from these guys, I wouldn't want any less then 5 people working on one car.  The amount of paperwork required for this competition is incredible.  Not to mention with more people it is easier to hit up companies for funding/sponsership.

 

I'm not going to tell you were to look for funding, but I will tell you one thing that will have to be done.  Go talk to all the local machine shops and see if they will exchange some machine work for sponsership.  This will be worth its weight in gold, trust me.  There is going to be tons of stuff on that car, that you will not be able to machine yourself.  Or buy.

[RyanbabZ71]

Well the car is already started this yr so next yr we would just have to improve on it.

 

Also the guy who started the project said the machine shop (where he works) would still be willing to lend out space for it to be worked on so we are set there

 

Also there will be 2 people working on the project.  All senior design projects either have 2 EE and 1 ME, 2 ME's, or 2 ME's and 1 EE