Baja ECUv2
The previous ECU generation, split across two boards, one reads the car, the other receives over CAN and drives the display in front of the driver. 2nd place at the 2024 Baja SAE Brasil national competition.
- 2023/2024
- Head of Electronics
- Equipe Imperador · UTFPR
- C++ · PCB · CAD · Automotive sensing
A Baja SAE car is judged in competition but improved between competitions, and you can only improve what you measured. For a year and four months as Head of Electronics at Equipe Imperador, my job was to make the car report what was happening to it.
The scope of the role
Head of Electronics on a university competition team is not a purely technical role. What the position actually required:
- Conceptualisation, planning, prototyping and final product: the whole cycle, not one stage of it
- People management and electronic project management
- Programming in C++
- PCB design
- CAD and 3D printing
- Automotive harness manufacturing
- Automotive sensing solutions
Management is the part that shows up least in a portfolio. An electronics subsystem on a Baja team depends on people juggling classes, exams and a competition deadline at the same time.
The environment is the project
Competition off-road automotive electronics is an environment problem before it is a circuit problem. The car vibrates, heats up, gets wet and runs on dirt. A system that works on the bench and shuts down on the second lap records no data.
Results
- 2nd place at Baja SAE Brasil, the 2024 national competition
- 1st place in design at the 20th Baja SAE Regional Sul, in Criciúma (November 2023)
The design award evaluates the engineering itself, in defending the design decisions before a panel, rather than the car’s performance on track.