The Journey of Team Screwtenizers: From Vision to the BAJA SAE INDIA Southern Section 2026 Podium

There's a certain quiet that settles in before a machine comes alive. It's the quiet of blueprints spread across workshop tables, of calculations scratched into the margins of notebooks, of sparks flying as steel slowly gives in to human hands. Long before an engine roars, before tyres touch the track, before a medal ever reaches a podium, engineering starts with something much simpler: a shared belief.

That belief is what brought together 25 students from different departments at Government College of Technology, Coimbatore. Working under the name Team Screwtenizers, part of the SAE Collegiate Club, they set out to build an all-terrain vehicle, but their real goal went further than that. They wanted to prove what a government institution could do when given the chance: resourceful, resilient, and refusing to settle for anything less than their best.

At the helm was Sridharan R., captain and brakes lead, who carried more than just the technical responsibilities of steering the team through competition. His leadership showed up in the problems he helped solve, the confidence he passed on to teammates, and his ability to keep everyone moving forward even when things got hard.

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The team's goal was BAJA SAEINDIA Southern Section 2026, held at Hindustan College of Engineering and Technology, Coimbatore. It's a national-level competition where student teams design, build, and test an all-terrain vehicle through a series of tough static and dynamic events. But as with any race, the real work happened long before the starting line.

For almost three months, the team buried themselves in research and development. Days rolled into nights as ideas turned into designs, simulations took the place of guesswork, and prototypes slowly became something real. Every conversation circled back to one question: can we make it better?

Once the design phase wrapped up, the harder part began. Instead of outsourcing fabrication like many teams do, Screwtenizers chose to do it all themselves. Every tube in the chassis was cut, bent, notched, welded, and put together by the students. Their workshop stopped being just a place to build and became something closer to a classroom, where every mistake taught them something and every small improvement felt earned.

There's an old idea that machines carry the fingerprints of the people who built them. If that's true, this vehicle carried the fingerprints of every teammate who stayed late, every volunteer who picked up a tool without being told to, and everyone who refused to stop at "good enough".

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When it was finally done, the vehicle weighed 234 kilograms and stood as proof of months of design work, testing, and constant refinement. But no amount of preparation ever fully removes uncertainty, and competitions have a way of asking questions no simulation can answer. Representing the Government College of Technology, Team Screwtenizers was the only government engineering institution from Tamil Nadu competing alongside some of the country's top private and deemed universities.

Their vehicle faced every event BAJA had to offer: weight, cost, design, business presentation, acceleration, manoeuvrability, and endurance. Each one tested something different, and each one demanded a different kind of grit.

Then came the moment that really showed what the team was made of. Just thirty minutes before the official brake test, a rod end on the front A-arm sheared without warning. For a lot of teams, that would've been the end of the road. But Screwtenizers didn't wait around for help. They grabbed their tools, figured out the problem, built a fix, and had the vehicle back in action within ten minutes. In that moment, engineering wasn't just about equations or machinery anymore. It was about trust, composure, and the kind of calm that only comes from truly knowing what you built.

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As the competition went on, the vehicle held its own where it counted. One of the team's proudest moments was placing runner-up in the Acceleration Event, hitting a top speed of 34 km/h, a result that reflected months of persistence and teamwork.

The final standings weren't exactly what the team had hoped for, but success isn't always about where you land on a scoreboard. Sometimes it's about the courage to rebuild after something breaks, the determination to solve problems under pressure, and the confidence that comes from getting through challenges that once felt impossible.

For Team Screwtenizers, BAJA SAEINDIA was never only about building a vehicle. It was about building engineers. It was about learning that leadership grows strongest in uncertain moments, that innovation often starts with limited resources, and that persistence can turn a workshop full of steel into something much bigger. None of this would've been possible without the support of their faculty mentors and sponsors. The team is deeply grateful to VNA Groups, C1X Inc., Liha Aerosols, Janatics India Private Limited, and RKG Ghee for believing in their vision and helping a group of young engineers turn ambition into something real.

As one season ends, another quietly begins. The blueprints will come back out. The workshop lights will burn late into the night again. New ideas will replace old ones, and lessons learned will shape stronger designs. Because if this journey proved anything, it's this: steel might form the chassis, and engines might create the motion, but it's people, their vision, their resilience, their shared spirit, that really drive a machine forward. And knowing this team, this isn't the end of their story. It's just the first chapter of an even bigger comeback.

Credits:

Patron: Dr. K. Manonmani, Principal of GCT

Staff In-charge: Dr. M. Kalpana

Editor in Chief: Mathimalar V (IT 23-27)

Article prepared by: Mathimalar V (IT 23-27)