Want hands-on experience? Build a car
Bearcats Baja celebrates 50 years of designing, building and racing
Students at the University of Cincinnati are busy designing a new off-road vehicle that can survive a grueling obstacle course and endurance competition.
Bearcats Baja, one of three motorsport teams in Bearcats racing, is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year.
While the club attracts students from UC’s College of Engineering and Applied Science, this semester it is recruiting students from the Carl H. Lindner College of Business and the College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning to help with the operational and creative tasks required for a successful motorsports team, spokesman Grant Aspenwall said.
This requires cultivating sponsorships, ordering parts and materials and drafting a professional business plan for competition judges.
They are gearing up for competition in October in South Carolina.
“It’s a brutal competition,” Aspenwall said. “It’s a whole lot of fun.”
UC's student group Bearcats Baja is building its 50th anniversary car this year at its garage on the Victory Parkway Campus. Photo/Provided
Teams design and build a new car from the wheels up powered by a standard 10 to 15 horsepower motor depending on the year’s specifications. But virtually everything else is up to the students in keeping with rules and standards set by the Society of Automotive Engineers.
In competition, teams are scored based on design, the team’s presentation and the vehicle’s performance. Cars are put through their paces in tests of the drive train, acceleration and maneuverability.
“The main event is endurance, a four-hour-long race with 100 teams,” Aspenwall said.
This race is less about team versus team than team versus terrain as drivers deal with hills, hairpin curves and bumpy moguls that can rattle car frames and stress suspensions.
“Anything that can fail will fail,” Aspenwall said. “You can break uprights and hubs. The question is how long your vehicle can last in that brutal environment.”
As a kid, I always wanted to get into the automotive industry and here I am at Honda.
Grant Aspenwall, UC co-op student and member of Bearcats Baja
Students design and build their cars in a shop on UC’s Victory Parkway campus. Students learn the skills such as welding, machining and fabrication needed to assemble the frame, suspension, brakes, steering, electrical and other systems.
“I got to learn how to weld, use a lathe and work with sheet metal fabrication,” Aspenwall said. “It’s a really cool way to get hands-on experience in learning these skills. Finding something outside your major that you’re interested in.”
Construction of the all-terrain vehicle starts with a sturdy but lightweight frame, UC student Lukas Croasmun said. Photo/Provided
Associate Professor Educator Jacob Cress, the club’s faculty adviser, said more than 150 students take part in the three racing teams. Baja has about 40 active members.
Engineering students can use their off-road vehicle as a senior capstone project by enrolling in the automotive design courses.
Students in other majors, or even in other colleges, can get elective credit through a related special topics course.
“These teams are more than just racing teams; they are functionally small businesses fabricating, maintaining and competing a fleet of race cars,” he said.
Every academic year, students on the teams will design, build, test, tune and compete in a race car, Cress said.
This requires them to review any rule changes from the previous year and upcoming competitions, research new technologies and establish team goals.
“These might be team improvement in one of the events, a weight-reduction target or whatever the team’s leadership feels is necessary to achieve a realistic score and placement in the competition,” Cress said.
While the engineering students are working on the design and fabrication of the vehicles, business students on the team help secure sponsorships, apply for funding, create marketing strategies, complete purchase orders and handle the accounting, he said.
“Basically, it’s everything an operating business does except payroll and taxes,” Cress said.
The team is recruiting talent from other colleges to fill roles to create graphic designs for the vehicle, helmets, website and social media and marketing materials, Cress said.
The all-terrain vehicle is judged on its acceleration, maneuverability and towing capacity before facing an endurance race. Photo/Provided
Aspenwall’s family has a long relationship with UC. His grandmother graduated from the College-Conservatory of Music. His father studied chemical engineering. And he is studying mechanical engineering.
His five years with Bearcats Baja helped land him a co-op at Honda Motor Co., where he hopes to work after graduation.
“Off-road racing seemed like fun. As a kid, I always wanted to get into the automotive industry and here I am at Honda,” Aspenwall said. “My experience with the Baja team really helps set me apart because I have hands-on experience outside the classroom.”
Students work in a garage at UC's Victory Parkway Campus. Photo/Provided
Mechanical engineering technology student Lukas Croasmun has been with the club for four years. His sister graduated from UC’s Lindner College of Business.
“The only engineer in our family was my grandpa, who was a welder, but he had that mindset of problem-solving,” Croasmun said. “I probably get it from him.”
Students use the same design software as automotive companies. This year Croasmun is working as the team’s frame lead.
“It all starts with the frame,” he said.
“Our frame was 105 pounds last year. Our target this year is 100 pounds,” he said. “You want to keep the weight low but stiff and safe enough for the driver. So we do a lot of torsion and rigidity testing to get stress feedback.”
Of UC’s three racing teams, he picked Bearcats Baja because it had the smallest membership. He figured correctly that he would be able to contribute right away.
“Immediately, they said, ‘We have something broken on the car. Can you fix it?’” he said.
At UC, Croasmun worked several co-ops at employers including Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. and BMW Manufacturing. After graduating, he hopes to move somewhere he can enjoy his favorite pastime of snowboarding.
But Croasmun said he made lots of friends at Bearcats Baja.
“Competitions are great. I ended up teaching one of the teams from Saudi Arabia how to throw a football,” he said. “It was a lot of fun.”
Featured image at top: UC motorsports team Bearcats Baja is recruiting students who are interested in helping the team with its 50th anniversary all-terrain vehicle. Photo/Provided
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