We’ve mentioned the guys from Apex Buggy a couple of times in the rolls reports. They are a group of mostly freshmen, mostly living in a new dorm called “The Residence on 5th” or “The Rez” for short. Despite being on campus for only a few months, they’ve done an impressive amount of work towards starting a team including soliciting design and build advice from anyone that will talk, and doggedly seeking funding from private donations, and the various official channels. They are also the organization that recently inspired us to once again consider making seed grants to new orgs (see the New Org Grants thread in our project zone), a discussion we haven’t yet concluded.
Anyhow, they’ve secured enough funding to get going and they’re currently planning their first build for the winter months. Now’s our chance to help out. Apex front-man Connor e-mailed me asking some specific questions, but I’d like to use the opportunity to generally improve our informational resources for new teams. If you’re reading this, you know a thing or two that could help a new team. Take a moment and either:
- Edit one of the Reference pages below to share generally-useful buggy info with the community
- Email info@cmubuggy.org with tips or suggestions and we’ll do the ground work of sharing them with Apex and adding them to the Reference section
- Email Apex’s front-man Connor directly (cmhayes@andrew.cmu.edu) if you want to get your advice straight to the customer
- Post a comment on this post with your favorite tip or trick for building a buggy or getting to raceday with limited funds.
- “At the moment we need carbon fiber, a vacuum pump, and a vacuum bag. Those are the big 3
things to get started. Do you know any alumni specifically who could help us get those materials for good prices?” - “If there is anyone out there who wants to talk to us about carbon fiber, lay-up schedules, directional weaknesses, twill vs straight weave and all of that stuff it would be greatly appreciated.”
Reference Section pages to work on
These pages are just beginning. Anything you can add in terms of which tools and materials are most important, good suppliers for critical materials, or cheap and clever substitutes for expensive specialty tools and materials would be super helpful!
Good luck Apex, hope to see you out in February.
Last rolls of the semester, temps close to 60, and plans to do another live broadcast from the chute … I was excited for rolls this Sunday. And then I woke up at 10:30. Oops. My sincere apologies to anyone who tried to watch the live stream. After working out the technical details last week, we uncovered and even larger weakness: the human factor. For what it’s worth, I paid my penance with a solid hangover. Luckily Zack Waldman has my back so we’ve got a rolls report.
Rolls on Saturday have been canceled on account of wintery temperatures, but Sunday is still on, and it’ll be the last day of rolls.
13 times through the order in one weekend is enough to wear out fresh, energetic teams in September. For the teams running a little lower than they’d like on manpower (almost all of them) here in mid-November, this weekend was a real endurance test. But the drivers got huge amounts of practice and for the most part everyone had their act together. We also had some fun producing content this weekend with black and white photography on Saturday and a live streaming broadcast from the chute on Sunday.
The end of daylight savings meant Saturday was a super short day while Sunday was nice and long, leaving time for a full mini-raceday-esque event. Weather was in the low 30s but nice and sunny which is better than we might expect for November. Zach Waldman and Ben Matzke covered the rolls report while I was out of town so thanks to them, and no thanks to me for taking this long to get it posted! Fantasy buggy times were collected on Sunday and the winner will be announced very soon.