SAE International hosts an annual collegiate design series called Baja SAE.  In this competition of college students design, fabricate, and compete Mini-Baja vehicles.  A Mini-Baja vehicle is an off-road vehicle that is designed to handle extreme off road elements.  The dynamic portion of the competition includes events like rock-crawling, mud-bogging, towing, and a four hour endurance race.

Each team must follow a basic set of guidelines but beyond this the design possibilities are limitless. After all, this is an engineering design competition in which vehicles are evaluated on items such as suspension design, frame design, and overall vehicle design.  These static evaluations along with a technical presentation require that students put their classroom engineering knowledge into practice.  While factors like budget and deadlines must be kept in mind throughout the process.

Each vehicle is powered by the same 10 HP OHV Intek Model 205432  Briggs & Stratton engine so design of the vehicle itself determines its speed and off road capabilities. Vehicle weight plays a biggest part in the vehicles speed. The weight distribution and suspension design dictates how the vehicles will handle the off road challenges it's presented.