From classroom to career

To build the best vehicle, out-of-the-box thinking, innovation and carefully planned experimentation are critical to success. Attention to detail, preparation and working well under pressure are unique skills that are challenging to develop in students, yet will prove invaluable to their future careers. That's where Baja SAE comes in.

Weir ESCO’s Jacob Mikulsky and Eugene Havenga, both judges this year, agreed that the competition builds confidence in design engineering, but also teaches real-world professional and entrepreneurial skills. Students work through iteration after iteration—much like the process Jacob has refined from the shop floors of Wisconsin to the Texas oil rigs to ESCO’s cable shovel team.

“For the students, the competition requires constant refinement and optimisation,” said the cable shovel design engineer, “just like the engineering design principles and processes I use every day to develop mining products.”