How do you know it’s late March in Pittsburgh? 1) It was 20 degrees or less at rolls 2) 8 of the 11 orgs put up their fastest time of the semester this weekend (and the other three were the 1 buggy orgs). The cold was killing walkie-talkie batteries, fogging windshields, and fogging my brain, but impressively the buggies were flying.
In Attendance (buggies newest to oldest, all buggies qualified with at least one driver)
| Org | Saturday | Sunday |
|---|---|---|
| AEPi | Robobuggy | Robobuggy, Kamikaze |
| CIA | Ascension, Frejya, Renaissance, Quasar | Ascension, Renaissance, Firebird |
| Fringe | Bonsai, Borealis, Bedlam, Blizzard | Bonsai, Borealis, Blizzard, Brazen |
| KapSig | Apache | |
| PiKA | RD2011, Nemesis, Knightfall, Zeus | RD2011, Nemesis, Chimera, Knightfall |
| Pioneers | Chaos | Chaos |
| SAE | Rubicon | |
| SDC | Bane, Avarice, Malice, Psychosis, Rage | Bane, Avarice, Malice, Psychosis, Rage |
| SigEp | Mamba, Pandora | Mamba, Peregrine, Barracuda, Pandora |
| SigNu | Skua | Krait |
| Spirit | Mapambazuko, Seraph, Fuko, Haraka | Mapambazuko, Seraph, Fuko, Haraka |
Observations (Saturday gallery)
Spirit’s new buggy Mapambazuko (you can call it Zuke) was out and rolling like a pro. You’d know it was a Spirit buggy at first glance, but it does have some distinguishing features. The fighter-jet canopy windshield is back and it looks to be a really good fit with the shell which is no simple feat. The shell is a bit larger than Kingpin and Seraph with a higher peak, lower ride height, and bit of a segmented line near the tail, but overall very sleek and well formed. It looks like a good balance of knowledge handed down and experience gained by the current crew which is a great sign for the organization. The one feature that still has me thinking is the rear hatch which is a molded lexan shape that mirrors the front hatch. I looked pretty close and couldn’t see anyone in there, so I’m thinking it’s either to aide in filming the buggies they leave in their dust or because they got an awesome discount at the molded lexan store. Anyhow, pretty cool.
Fringe replaced the PJs on their new buggy with primer and gave it a name at the same time: Bonsai. The less obfuscating get-up didn’t reveal anything too surprising, but the rolls did. It may already be one the fastest buggies on the course. It entered the weekend with only 5 rolls and in the course of 5 more this weekend, it made its way to the very top of the freeroll rankings for the semester. Considering it was 2o degrees out, the times were pretty impressive. As rlbrown pointed out in a forum thread on putting new buggies on A team, now that Banyan seems to be retired, Bonsai is looking like a likely A team buggy for the defending champs.
Fringe had a new driver out which is pretty unusual for this time of year, especially for a team contending for the big prizes. She drove Bedlam (which hadn’t been out this semester) on Saturday, but reportedly had visibility problems. She was going plenty slow thanks to a Bruegers bag on the pushbar, but stopped at transition when she couldn’t see. After asking for directions, she continued on, but never turned at the chute flag and came to another gentle stop soon thereafter. She did get through the chute on her second try, but then she stopped on hill 3, and the buggy-driver match was deemed not to be. Apparently, they caped Brazen between days of rolls and brought it out for Sunday and found it to be a better fit. Brazen was thought to be retired after 10 distinguished years of service, but apparently it’s trying to give Zeus a run for its money. 6 newer Fringe buggies got passed over for the call-up.
CIA’s new Ascension had an up and down weekend. They debuted its completed paint job on Saturday and it looks pretty slick. Their first two monocoques looked a bit like a team’s first two attempts (i.e. improving but with curiosities), but Ascension is really polished and looks like a top-tier contender. On Sunday the chute treated it like any other comer though and broke that new paint job in a bit. The driver took a tight line and caught a bad part of the road and the stub or axle failed completely. The wheel bounced away while the buggy continued along its line until the friction inherent in a two wheeled tryke caught up to it.
SigNu made some big leaps in their second week back on the course, showing that they are still a veteran buggy house. Skua was rolling much faster on Saturday and their mechanics knew where to put the buggy on hill 2 and where to find it again on hill 5. On Sunday, they brought out Krait which is 5 years younger than it’s mold-mate Skua. I was surprised to see them start accumulating rolls on a second buggy given their late start with a single new driver, but if they stick to one or the other and the weather holds up, they should be fine.
It was a good weekend for controlled stops as both Spirit and CIA had buggies come to safe stops while in the middle of pass tests. CIA’s trailing buggies got the brake flag after Ascension lost its wheel. Spirit’s buggies stopped after their chute flagger noticed Fringe had stopped on hill 3 (as mentioned above) and pulled out the black & yellow. They would have been fine, but you can’t fault a safety-first call in the heat of the moment. One of Spirit’s trailing buggies had a locked up break or flatted wheel after the stop and had to be unloaded and carried back.
PiKA did at least one full hill 1 on Saturday which I think is awesome. Nobody ever does hill 1, but it’s a pretty big deal hill in this race. On Sunday Nemesis had a strange looking crash in the chute. It entered with a tight but stable line and was half way through before deviating to the outside. If I had to guess I’d say it hit a crack and broke a steering linkage.- KapSig came out both days, but had trouble with drops on Saturday and didn’t get to roll until Sunday. Brakes are the worst. Raise you hand if you’d rather do away with the whole brakes hassle. Votes will be weighted according to the voter’s height.
- Robobuggy made it around the course both mornings without incident. I believe it’s still under remote control, but I’m not sure. Either way, they seem to be making some good progress.
- Video of Sunday’s chute incidents! Also, if you’re the crash videos type, we’ve got the exclusive on SN’s glancing blow off the outside bales from last weekend here. If you’re reading this in RSS or your email you probably have to visit the site to see the video.
Only one more normal weekend of rolls before truck weekend, it’s happening fast this year.
mccue says:
cliffhanger on the pika entry.
also: brazen? that’s awesome. get tommy here this year.
RMike says:
“…continued along its line until the friction inherent in a two wheeled tryke caught up to it.”
My favorite part of the report.
Anonymous says:
Hey, I heard the Pika driver hurt her face during the crash. Can someone confirm if that is true? Cause that is serious stuff…
Ben says:
@RMike
I agree, very poetic
Jake Reid says:
Robobuggy is now officially known as Singularity, in reference to the technological singularity. She was rolling on RC this weekend, but now we have enough video data that RoboNate should be able to have the buggy rolling autonomously as soon as next weekend.
On the mechanical side, the buggy hasn’t been rolling well at all, unable to make it through the freeroll. The wheels and bearings are pretty good, and we’ve added some weight to it, so the biggest suspect is that the remote control’s signal isn’t good enough and accidentally triggers the brake. Any other ideas as to what could be slowing the buggy down are welcome.
For anybody who’s interested, here’s an explanation from RoboNate on how some of the algorithms work, complete with awesome video demonstrating how the buggy thinks:
http://robobuggy.blogspot.com/2011/03/software-demo.html
Shafeeq says:
Robobuggy: You can check if the brakes are dragging by putting some paint or tape on the bottom of the brake pad and see if it still there at the end of the roll. With a lack of feedback, it is quite likely the remote driver is making more, and more abrupt, steering corrections than a good human driver would. I can’t remember if we ever made sure the back wheels were pointing in the same direction either.
Ascension: The wheel bouncing right back into the nose of the buggy is hilarious.
RD2011: too fast for its windshield tape job. Or maybe that was an attempt at airflow visualization.
tommyk says:
If you’re not making it through the chute … your wheels are definitely not good enough.
Get better rubber (poly) then go through the basics …
Remove grease from bearings, use something slippier.
Align your wheels, if you have a standard tryke, rotate your axle to align (hint, a little toe-in is best).
Spin your wheels, do they stop quickly? Re-build it. Figure out how to get it to spin forever.
What does robobuggy weigh? maybe not enough?
Have you tried taco juice?
Shafeeq says:
I think their current wheels are stock plastic-hub clear Xootr’s, so there’s, ahem, plenty of room for improvement.
The original wheels, which were made from rubber left over from replacing the CIA garage’s door seal, were deliberately slow, but combined with the light weight, still had enough roll that the Hill 5 could bump once and never catch the buggy again.
Carl says:
Robobuggy folks: I would suggest making your buggy room accessible to alumni after/during raceday and ask for folks to show up and offer advice. So long as you remember to stock your cooler I would imagine that you’ll be breaking the 2 minute barrier next year.
Jake Reid says:
Singularity’s wheels are basically the same thing that gets Kamikaze through the chute–plastic Xootr hubs with fairly hard custom compound–I don’t think that’s the problem. Bearings aren’t raceday-quality but they’re spinning very freely. Wheel alignment is something I hadn’t thought of before, that’s definitely something to check. It might be too light, but we have added some shot to weigh it down and haven’t noticed much of an improvement.
Paul D says:
Hey Jake another possibility (and this is just a wild guess) is that the front wheel is rubbing up against the shell or something in the steering fork/ wheel well. The wheels you have on there now are bigger than the original CIA wheels and even if there is a little bit of rubbing going on its going to totally ruin your freeroll.
Also Ascension in the chute makes me sad.
jixson says:
couldn’t really tell from the video, but did Nemesis touch the inside bales?
tommyk says:
That ZN video inspires a little panic doesn’t it?
Was the driver shaken up?
Mechanically, the in-board wheels probably kept that kind of collision from being an all-night axle rebuild to just a little bit of spit shining, although I was half expecting another one of these http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzQn6jOH0RE
Zoo says:
Our driver was fine after that. Maybe just a little bit shocked since it was her first “incident”
As for the buggy, there was nothing more than some cosmetic damage to the paint.
Anonymous says:
no mention of sigep?
Anonymous says:
Sometimes no news is good news
Ascension says:
“you picked a fine time to leave me loose wheel….”
Push Practice says:
Snow in March!?!?!
Now you’re just f**ing with me, Pittsburgh.