Bucknell Baja team heads to regional off-road competition in New York

Bucknell University’s Baja Racing Team took a student-designed, student-built off-road vehicle to regional competition in Palmyra, New York, with more at stake than a weekend finish. The run at Hogback Hill MX also served as a test of a reworked program structure meant to keep engineering knowledge, fabrication skills and team leadership alive from one class year to the next.

The event, Baja SAE New York, was scheduled for June 11 through June 14 and drew student teams from across the region to a course built around design, durability and endurance. SAE International capped the field at 100 teams and set the registration fee at $1,850. In Baja SAE, students design and build a prototype of an all-weather, rugged, single-seat, off-road recreational vehicle, then face static and dynamic events that measure vehicle performance, design process, business acumen and readiness to compete under pressure.

For Bucknell, the significance reaches back to Lewisburg and Union County. The engineering program is one of the university’s most visible hands-on showcases, and the Baja team now operates less like a one-off senior design assignment and more like a student club that spans multiple class years. That change matters because it gives younger students a way to learn the car, the fabrication process and the internal systems that keep a complex build moving.

The team’s own structure reflects that shift. Bucknell’s club-sport model says student clubs are governed by students and depend on active participation, volunteer advisors or coaches and effective student leadership. The Baja team has built out its own infrastructure as well, including a wiki that offers general descriptions of the car and its components, engineering analysis and tutorial content for working on the vehicle. Its contact page lists Matt Raudabaugh as president and Ryan Firko as treasurer.

That continuity showed up in the roster Bucknell highlighted for the competition. Daniel Atuma ’29, Nate Gutierrez ’27 and Katelyn School ’28 were part of the effort, giving the project a span of experience that stretches from first-year underclassmen to students already leading the work. Gutierrez was previously featured mentoring first-year engineering students with the Baja car frame, a small example of how the team has begun functioning like a workshop where newer students learn by doing.

Bucknell’s College of Engineering, led by Dean Brad Putman and Associate Dean Terri Norton, has long leaned on experiential work to show what the campus can produce. If the Baja team’s new model holds, the payoff goes beyond one competition in New York. It would give Lewisburg a steadier maker pipeline, one that can keep turning out students who know how to build, troubleshoot and lead under real deadlines.