The Bajaj Challenge was one of the most fun activities we have done in class this year. I loved the improvisation aspect of the challenge where we had to make use of the random assortment of low fidelity prototyping materials. It reminded me of the activity we did on the first day of ENGI 120. For the first iteration of our bajaj, we focused too much on the safety aspect when we should have been focusing more on speed. Our main goal was to increase the time that the bajaj decelerates when it collides with the wall. First, we cut a cup in half to make a housing for our ping pong balls. Then we put little cushions that we made out of foam into the cup surrounding the ping pong balls. We also put cushions made the same way on the front of the bajaj to act as bumpers for when it collided with the wall. The final safety feature we installed was a swing on top of the ping pong ball housing. The idea was that the swing would help increase the deceleration time. However, I do not think the swing had a significant impact.
After making all of the safety improvements we focused on speed. We only had a few minutes to focus on speed so all we did was to put packs of post-it notes on the outside of the bajaj to increase its weight.
Image 1: First Bajaj Prototype
On of our first test the bajaj did not go all the way down the string because we used rubber coated paper clips. On the second test, once we had switched the paper clips, it did successfully slide down the wire but when it hit the wall one of our balls popped out.
Because of this failure, we decided to completely redesign our bajaj. Keeping the two goals of safety, and speed in mind, we tried to come up with a new, innovative bajaj. First we made a door for the top of our baja so the balls would fall out when it was upside down but could not fall out when it was right side up. Then we made a long truss for the front of our bajaj so we could hit the wall sooner. The truss also worked to deflect the bajaj off the wall so it would have more time to slow down before hitting the wall.
Image 2: Second Bajaj Prototype
This bajaj was much more successful than the first one. In our first test, unfortunately, our bajaj crashed into the cameraman so it did not complete its run. On the second test, however, it recorded a time of 2.63 seconds which was good enough for third place!
