The Case Western Reserve University Baja SAE team, based in Cleveland, Ohio, is a dedicated group of student engineers specializing in designing and manufacturing lightweight, single-seat off-road vehicles for the Baja SAE Collegiate Design Series competitions. The team is committed to continuous growth, aiming to enhance its members’ leadership, teamwork, and engineering skills.
Before partnering with Kenesto, the team faced longstanding challenges related to file management and collaboration. They relied heavily on Siemens NX for CAD with a small amount of Solidworks for some specifics., which. As the team’s size and complexity grew, so did the need for a more adaptable, efficient system that could support multiple CAD tools, streamline collaboration.
Kenesto provided an integrated, user-friendly platform that revolutionized how the team managed their design files and collaboration processes. With Kenesto, over 100 team members gained access to a centralized system that supported seamless version control, file sharing, and collaboration—empowering engineers to work more creatively and efficiently.
Josh Stout, a Suspension Design Engineer on the team, highlights the tangible benefits:
“By utilising Kenesto’s version history feature, I’ve been able to test out a variety of designs before landing on the final one, vastly reducing iteration time and allowing for creativity without cluttered files.”
The CWRU Baja SAE team is preparing to compete in all three 2025 Baja SAE events, held in Arizona, Maryland, and South Carolina. These competitions are part of a global series sanctioned by the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE), one of the most respected platforms for collegiate engineering. These events feature rigorous technical inspections, dynamic driving challenges, design and sales presentations, cost evaluations, and a demanding four-hour endurance race. Participation in such high-caliber competitions pushes the team to develop innovative solutions and continually improve their off-road vehicle performance—making the role of efficient tools like Kenesto even more vital.
Kenesto’s flexible and intuitive platform has become a vital tool for CWRU Baja SAE, supporting their mission to develop their engineering and leadership skills while pushing the boundaries of off-road vehicle design. This partnership exemplifies how modern engineering teams can thrive with the right digital tools.