ITM Helps Miami University Students Succeed SAE Baja

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A 400-pound off-road vehicle is suspended seven feet above the floor inside the high-bay of Miami University’s engineering building. In a split second, with the pull of a release pin, the rugged race car — loaded with an extra 150 pounds to simulate a driver — free-falls to the concrete.

It is another day of severe testing for MU’s RedHawk Racing Team, a crew of about a dozen students at the Ohio school preparing for the Baja SAE Collegiate Design Series. Riding along for the test is a crucial piece of portable hardware: a CompactDAQ unit on loan from Integrated Test & Measurement (ITM), a National Instruments Gold Alliance Partner from Milford, Ohio. On impact, ITM’s battery-powered cDAQ-44 acquires load data from strain gauges affixed to the car’s frame and instantly sends a wireless transmission to a nearby laptop. The students and advisors huddled around the computer react as the signal yields an immediate spike within ITM’s iTestSystem software (iTS). For the budding engineers, it is an exciting moment — their vehicle design has just moved from one built on trial and error to one informed by real test data.

“I can’t thank ITM enough for making this tool and application available to us. Our new frame design is going to hold up so much better. It was absolutely awesome to see the real-time data from our tests. Up until now, we were just guessing in the dark.” — Patrick Gallagher, senior engineering student, Miami University

The Challenge: Guessing in the Dark

Gallagher and his teammates spend 10 to 20 hours a week throughout the year perfecting their entry for the Baja — a three-times-a-year gauntlet sponsored by the Society of Automotive Engineers that draws upward of 120 teams from universities worldwide. Each team’s open-wheel buggy must survive both a four-hour endurance race over extreme terrain and the scrutiny of SAE judges, who spend days poring over the design, build, test and promotion phases.

Last year’s racer suffered a cracked frame at one competition and a complete shear-off at another. This season, thanks to the Finite Element Analysis (FEA) work the team was able to accomplish after borrowing ITM’s cDAQ-44 and iTestSystem application, the RedHawks are confident their car will fare far better — an edge they believe will not just improve performance but also wow the judges with the engineering science behind their prototype.

“I’ve never read of any other team actually able to do this type of dynamic logging of strain data. The judges always make a point of asking what new things you have done to better your design. This will give us major brownie points.” — Patrick Gallagher, hoping for a top-10 finish

The Solution: A Rugged, Wireless Data Recorder

Miami’s tests were another chance for ITM to show what its cDAQ-44 unit and iTS software can do, and both proved adept as the students put the car through its paces. Additional tests included a down-the-stairs run and high-speed curb jumps — all while logging continuous load data. The custom-made unit and software let users take up to an eight-hour snapshot of a vehicle during operation and gather load, temperature and accelerometer measurements — without tapping into the vehicle’s power source.

“We developed the cDAQ-44 to be a nice industrial, rugged package. With this unit, a laptop and our software, you can mount it to a vehicle real quickly, and if you are within standard wireless range, begin pulling data right away without hooking up any cords to your computer. Plus, we can use environmental connectors that are dust- and water-tight, so you can run it down the road or right through the mud.” — Ryan Welker, ITM Engineer

Welker was thrilled with the firm’s interaction with the Miami Baja team. Not only did it give ITM a chance to help area students in the field, it also demonstrated how easy the firm’s proprietary software is to pick up.

“We turned over our iTestSystem software to students who had never used it before, and after a general introduction and a brief explanation, they were off and running and able to use it with success. They never called with any problems.” — Ryan Welker

For more information on this case study, contact Mark Yeager — Integrated Test & Measurement (ITM), LLC — mark.yeager@iTestSystem.com

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