Auction mini-post – Heat Selections and chute vids

Posted on | by ben | 5 Comments on Auction mini-post – Heat Selections and chute vids

Heat selections happened last night and went pretty smoothly. No one was wondering about hill 1 times at all, so either everyone has done some fantastic scouting, or we will have some very interesting hill 2 races. The big shenanigan of the night was PiKA attempting to run 3 men’s teams with only Banshee and Chimera. By removing that, a whole heat was removed and the whole thing had to be redone, not that it made much of a difference in the end.

Sweepstakes is allowing 24 hrs for teams to make any swaps as they need them. Because of that we will be launching the Auction tonight when heats become final. In the mean time, enjoy these videos from Rolls a couple weekends ago. Continue reading →

Carnival Plans – Raceday

Posted on | by ben | 11 Comments on Carnival Plans – Raceday

The same group that is working on the updates to design comp has also been doing some tinkering with Raceday. And for those of you that are worried, no we are not changing the rules, we wouldn’t touch that with an eleven foot pole, but we hope some of the flow will be improved a bit this year (pending the usual weathery culprits of course).

As the buggy fanatics that we know you are, we feel like you deserve to know as much as we do. A lot got covered in the last meeting, so this is a meaty post. If you need to, wait till you’re more hungry, or take in a bit now and take the rest home in a doggy bag to eat later.
Of course, we’re still a few weeks out, so nearly all of this is potentially subject to change.

DSC05191

Continue reading →

Carnival Plans – Design Competition

Posted on | by ben | 28 Comments on Carnival Plans – Design Competition

Hey guys, it’s been around 2 months since the last post went up, so it’s time to get back into the rhythm before rolls start up. This is a big year as Carnival is celebrating its 100th year, and it’s only 8 weeks away! Because of this, the buggy organizers are working hard on making this year special. There are some special additions as well as a few major changes that we’re looking at.

The design comp chair this year, Connor Hayes (Apex founder), has some pretty awesome ideas to improve design comp and make it a bit more interesting, BUT he’s looking for some feedback from the community and has written the following…

Continue reading →

Midsemester Break – No Rolls, New Rules?

Posted on | by ben | 4 Comments on Midsemester Break – No Rolls, New Rules?

With many students using the break to visit home and see their family, there were no rolls this weekend. The students that stayed on campus got the chance to sleep in, relax, and work more on buggy than they otherwise would.

Since there were no rolls this weekend, it seems like the perfect chance to talk about the other side of Sweepstakes. And while rumors are flying of new buggies being built, that can maybe be better served for when we actually start seeing them on the course. Instead, lets talk about the rules and what’s going on with them.

Next Rules Committee Meeting:

This Wednesday 10/24

From 9pm to 10pm

Location TBD

Continue reading →

Whoa! Rolls start in 2 days, time to get the BAA back in action!

Posted on | by Sam Swift | 5 Comments on Whoa! Rolls start in 2 days, time to get the BAA back in action!

Sweepstakes and the teams are on the ball and the 93rd season of buggy is scheduled to kick off this Saturday at 7:01am.  Are you ready?  Are you excited?  Is this the last thing on the list telling you that you have to admit that summer is over?

Well get ready, and get excited, because it’s time to stuff the smallest ladies in Pittsburgh into carbon tubes, send them flying down the hill and then push them back up to the top.  If it doesn’t put a smile on your face to think about our most peculiar sport ramping back up for a new season … your smile must be broken because you’re on this website, who are you kidding!

So, what does it mean to start a new season?

  • Our highly-esteemed rolls reports will resume next week, with weekly coverage of the weekend’s action usually hitting the interwebs on Monday morning to give you  something to look forward to as you start your week.
  • Our fall activities are coming up.  We’ll be running a welcome table at Cèilidh to meet and greet, Tom Wood will be giving his history of buggy talk, and we’ll be running the 2nd annual game of Fantasy Buggy scheduled around mini-raceday at the end of the fall season of rolls.
  • Now is the time to start working on projects to make buggy bigger, more popular, and more fun for alumni and current students.  Ideas tend to come up in March when the buggy buzz is really getting strong, but it’s tough to pull off the big projects in a month.  If you’ve got a big idea, throw it out in the Project Zone and rally some troops to get it done.  We don’t raise money for our retirement accounts, we raise it to fund fun projects.  Let’s do it!
  • It’s time to re-up on your BAA membership.  BAA membership is an annual affair so any contribution now until the end of May makes you a 2013 supporter.  A contribution of any amount >$1 gets you on the roster for the year and gives you the happy feeling of knowing that you enable the BAA to support buggy and make it cooler than it was the year before.  Check out our membership page to see the past year’s rosters and for details on the money stuff.
How are we going to pull off this exciting new year of BAA activity?
  • Well, that’s an interesting question.  The BAA is at a bit of a turning point.  The BAA will celebrate its 5th birthday at carnival 2013 and many of the folks who founded and have led this awesome organization have new, probably less awesome things vying for their time (babies, jobs, living in different cities, whatever).  As a result, we’ve got opportunities aplenty for alumni with energy and ideas on how to continue to contribute to the sport of buggy even though you’re no longer paying your student activities fee.
  • Janice Schneekloth is stepping down as chairwoman after 2 great years at the helm, and that is the primary role we need to fill.  The BAA is a group effort.  We work on things the community thinks are worthwhile and interesting and we try to do it by including everyone who can contribute.  Still, we need one person to make the tough calls (there aren’t many) and keep the organization hanging together and moving forward.  We also need more people to be part of the committee and adopt specific parts of the BAA operation and make them their thing.  This post from May outlines the jobs that need doing.
  • I am also one of the people who has been forced to move on a bit because I physically moved to Chapel Hill, NC this summer.  Blackjack is already hung on our new wall, so I won’t forget about buggy, and being part of the beginning of the Buggy Alumni Association has been one of my favorite CMU experiences.  This is my 147th post on cmubuggy.org, and I’m sure it won’t be my last, but I don’t think I’d do a very good job with the rolls reports from 500 miles away.
  • So Ben Matzke (CIA chairman, 2011) is going to be taking over to start things off on the news front, but he could use your help.  I’ll let him do the coordination, but rolls reports is an ideal job for a 2 or 3 person rotating team.  You’d be surprised how nice it is to get out of the house early, go see some buggy, and then start your Saturday.  That, and telling the ladies you write for cmubuggy.org works like a charm every time, trust me.
  • So, for the next 8 days we will be accepting nominations for Chairman of the BAA and volunteers for the other myriad of  roles that need filling.  Next Friday, we will either announce the new 2013 BAA committee, or (if we have more than 1 candidate for Chairman) a ballot .  Please comment on this post or email admin@cmubuggy.org to get involved.  Get involved, you’ll love it, I definitely have.

Men’s Finals washed out, SDC Sweeps 2012

Posted on | by Sam Swift | 8 Comments on Men’s Finals washed out, SDC Sweeps 2012

The rain held off for long enough to squeeze the women’s finals run starting earlier than scheduled at 8am.  A quick downpour doused the crowd waiting for the men’s heats to begin, and sweepstakes called it.  SDC takes both the Men’s and Women’s crowns for 2012.

More wrap-up later!  Enjoy the rest of carnival!

Final results:

Prelims awesome; finals waiting on weather

Posted on | by Sam Swift | 17 Comments on Prelims awesome; finals waiting on weather

Prelims were pretty awesome.  We’re hoping Finals will happen and be awesome despite the threat of rain.  Here’s the deal with what happened and what is scheduled to happen.

Prelims Results

Women’s Finals

Heat Lane 1 Lane 3
1 SigEp A SDC C
2 SDC B Spirit A
3 SDC A CIA A

Men’s Finals

Heat Lane 1 Lane 3
1 PiKA A SDC C
2 SigEp A Fringe B
3 SDC B Spirit B
3 Fringe A SigEp B
3 SDC A CIA A

Truck weekend mini-report and Raceday hype

Posted on | by Sam Swift | 26 Comments on Truck weekend mini-report and Raceday hype

If you’re a member you should have found our legendary Members-only Raceday Preview in your inbox by now.  Enjoy it.  If you didn’t get a copy, you should know that it’s not too late.  Join up, forward us the gift receipt to join@cmubuggy, and we’ll hook you up pronto.  If you thought you were a member, maybe we don’t have your email or have it wrong or something, let us know.  Lots of people plan on joining while they’re on campus, but we’ve  got some serious ground to cover to match last year’s membership total, so don’t be shy.

 Lead Truck Auction

Can you believe this is our 4th time putting on the lead truck auction?  It seems like just the other day that we announced the first iteration of our biggest fundraiser of the year.  It continues to be a fan favorite, so we’re back at it again.  If you haven’t ridden in the lead truck before, you should definitely get in the mix and snap up a heat you like the looks of.  If you’re a veteran, you know that it’s a great way to mix up your raceday experience.   Bidding starts tomorrow morning at 9am and will run for 36 hours until 9pm Wednesday.  Full description of the rules can be found on the auction page.  We’ve got a new version of our home-grown auction software this year.  We hope you like it! (and that it doesn’t break!).

Truck weekend Continue reading →

Pre-season updates and build status guesses

Posted on | by Sam Swift | 49 Comments on Pre-season updates and build status guesses

Assuming there’s no blizzard (none on the horizon), enough teams get capes done (they are scheduling now), and the weather stays mild (current forecast: partly cloudy and low 30’s), we could be 5 days from starting another season of spring freerolls!

To set the mood, I’ve included a slightly obfuscated picture from exactly 8 years ago today, during my last build, Blackjack.

Here’s what’s going on the last days of the off-season …

Apex absorbs Pioneers

The newest of the new upstart teams has been working the buggy social network as much as any group of freshmen with no buggy experience could hope to do and it’s recently paid off to some degree.  Apex [a group which started as some enthusiastic residents of The Residence on 5th (hence the original team name, “Rez Buggy”)] is taking over Pioneers’ assets and becoming a legit independent.  I can’t imagine that taking over where Pioneers left off was a huge head start, but it’s certainly better than working out of your dorm room.  They’ve got the ancient and decrepit Camo to start off with which is a tough start compared to DeltaForce’s experience with PiRho Perun, but what doesn’t kill them (and it won’t) will make them stronger.  Follow along @apexbuggy and offer some support and tips.

PiKA is officially allowed to participate

I don’t think I knew this was up in the air, but apparently it was just recently officially determined that PiKA would be allowed to roll this spring.  That’s great to hear.  I am very curious to see what size operation they attempt to operate from their dispersed, off-campus setup.  I see a Carson Palmer parallel.  Performing well the last couple of years, but not quite to their glory-day standards, forced to sit out the first half of the season and kind of pissed about it, but not without the fire to get back into it.  Then getting the chance to be back in and forcing some critics to admit they’ve still got it, but in the end, it takes time to adapt to the new scene and you finish .500.  Except, I bet they’ll even do better than finish .500.

Build Forecasts

I attempted this medium-difficulty prediction task back in 2009 and it was a fun exercise to get my head back in the game, so let’s try it again. Continue reading →

Rolls set to start Sunday, here we go again

Posted on | by Sam Swift | 10 Comments on Rolls set to start Sunday, here we go again

It’s that time of year again at the corner of Tech and Frew.  The permits are in and this Sunday the 18th is the first potential day of rolls.  The chairmen have been meeting for weeks, the drivers have had their meetings, and at least a few teams have their capes taken care of.  Currently these are the teams in the mix:

Ready to roll: CIA, Fringe, SDC, SigEp
Capes scheduled:  AEPi, KapSig, Spirit
Status unknown:  DTD/TriDelt, PiKA, Pioneers, SAE, SigNu

Those ranks are looking a little thin if the status-unknown crowd doesn’t show up soon.  Last year started with 8 orgs, so 7 isn’t that big of a drop but it’s the wrong direction for sure.  The schedule of fall freerolls is extensive though, so there’s time for the stragglers to get out.

Here at BAA headquarters, we’re preparing for another year of covering the buggy news you crave and generally putting the rest of the internet to shame.  Our #1 goal while we do that this fall is to get more people involved.  Personally, I’m about to (finally) finish grad school and it’s possible this is my last year in Pittsburgh.  Even this year, I will be missing a lot of weekends while I look for jobs.  The point being, I won’t be able to do rolls reports for much longer.  It is time to groom new buggy correspondents. Continue reading →