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.
In attendance
| Org | Saturday | Sunday |
|---|---|---|
| AEPi | Kamikaze | |
| CIA | Ascension, Freyja, Firebird, Quasar | Ascension, Firebird, Freyja, Renaissance |
| DeltaForce | (Perun) | (Perun) |
| Fringe | Bonsai, Borealis, Banyan, Bedlam | Bonsai, Borealis, Banyan, Bedlam |
| KapSig | ||
| SDC | Bane, Avarice, Malice, Rage | Avarice, Malice, Rage |
| SigEp | Mamba, Pandora | Mamba, Barracuda, Pandora |
| SigNu | Bungarus Krait | |
| Spirit | Zuke, Seraph | Zuke, Seraph, Haraka |
Observations (Saturday Gallery in B&W | Sunday Gallery)
- Lots of rolls to be had with two clear long days and minimal incidents. Buggies made it around the course 94 times on Sunday in a little less than 2 hours. Compare that to 34 rolls on Oct 23rd when there were 80 minutes of daylight to work with.
Bane got caught up in the outside bales on Saturday and sheared off the axle at the shell. Nobody caught a picture of it I don’t think, but when they carried it back up to the tent under a blanket, only one side had a protrusion where the rear wheels would be. SDC usually swaps parts out pretty quickly, but Bane wasn’t back out on Sunday. Bane had been going pretty fast and their buggies were drifting wide on a number of rolls, but they still usually have the balance worked out just right.
Spirit only spun once this weekend with Seraph on Saturday; it was of the vanilla no-contact variety and they pushed her back up the hill after conferring with the safety chair. Haraka was sliding all over and coming very close to the outside bales almost every time on Sunday but managed to keep it inches away time after time. I can’t keep track of their tire experiments, but Haraka was rolling on a wide flat matte black compound that may have been new or at least not their default.
DeltaForce is out every day and looking very reliable. They’ve got 22 rolls on the books and successful roll rate of 100% (not to jinx them). They were selling donuts to folks at the top of the hill to raise money for the team. I gotta love the spirit and it really makes me wish some of the other teams that started but didn’t make it in recent years (DTD, Kappa) had started with a buggy as solid and reliable as Perun. DeltaForce has been able to accumulate the keys skills and experience without endless frustrating set backs.
SigNu made it out on Sunday, and although they scratched the first 3 rolls of the day, they made it out and around the course cleanly. Earlier in the year they rolled Skua with a female driver and didn’t complete any rolls after a couple of days on the course. This weekend they rolled Krait and joined the male driver club (with CIA). The U-Haul van follow car was just icing on the cake. Glad to see them back out.
I just have to call attention to the fact that I caught not one, but two buggies making it through the chute two-wheelin’.
On Sunday we experimented for the first time with doing a live streaming webcast of freerolls from a camera in the chute. The idea came up in the project zone this past week and since we had most of the necessary technological pieces already, we decided to just do it. Aside from a few glitches we’ve now figured out it worked pretty well and a number of people (including teams in their tents) tuned in live with many more watching at least a chunk of the recorded version sometime later in the day.- Fringe had 4 buggies in circulation each day, but only rolled 2 or 3 at a time. They weren’t the only ones low on manpower; most orgs scratched a roll or two, or kept one in the tent each roll. Nobody was out timing as far as I could tell, so we’re left to very rough estimates on speed.
- Four members of The Rez (aspiring buggy team based in a new dorm on 5th) were out on Saturday soaking up the experience as much as they could without having a buggy. I walked a lap around the course with them and was very impressed with the depth of their knowledge and detailed plans. They acknowledge that time is getting a little tight to start and finish their first build in time to learn the ropes and get to raceday, but they haven’t ruled it out. If they can pull that off, or find a buggy to buy or rent I don’t doubt they’ll be a good team to have around in the spring.
Only one weekend of rolls left before the long cold months in which the teams get to build exciting new buggies and we alumni have to argue about the merits design comp or something to pass the time. Don’t miss our final rolls report of the semester a week from today as well as a likely second experiment with live streaming coverage from the chute over the weekend.
tommyk says:
nice report yo – too bad live stream is between 2am-4am for me …
Sam Swift says:
I see two easy solutions
#1: I can’t think of a better activity with which to woo the ladies once the bars close.
#2: the whole thing gets archived so you can watch it at your leisure (with the added benefit of fast forwarding).
Aileen says:
Sam, that might only be your ladies. I briefly considered the idea of watching the livestream at 6 am CST and decided instead that sleeping was a much finer idea.
McCue says:
I’m going to admit, I had some mixed feelings about leasing out Perun. But it looks great on the course and they’re obviously treating it well, so that makes me super happy.
Anyone from Delta Force reading this, get in contact with me. I’m interested in hearing how your year is going.
Bump says:
We’re just as interested to hear any tips on rolling Perun! Hit me up at dkane@andrew.cmu.edu with anything you want.
-Commander Kane, Delta Force
Connor Hayes says:
Hey Sam,
We all really appreciate the nice comments and it was great talking with you this weekend. If rolls are on this weekend we will be there! Just want to keep our names and faces in people’s minds. Also to any buggy alumni people who would like to help us, my email is cmhayesny@gmail.com. We have been trying to post on the forum for a month, but it isnt working.. (And i just realized i could comment with out problem..) Currently we need tools and supplies for carbon fiber and any tips you guys want to lend our way! Thank you so much from all the guys (and gals) here at the rez on 5th!
Broski says:
There’s a problem with registration where no new accounts can post on the forums… it’s being worked on. Heck, even my account dosn’t work on the forums.
Waldo says:
The live feed from the chute was very helpful to the orgs rolling, as it allowed anyone, albeit short of manpower, to check on what was going on/when to head out to hills
JakeM says:
[Don’t forget to write something about SigEp]
Jerry says:
My org didn’t get mentioned either! Time to take matters into my own hands. For the alumni reading this, Rolls Report CIA Edition!
We started the weekend with a bumpy Saturday. Sweepstakes just barely met quorum, so when a team ahead of us scratched their first roll we only had one buggy ready in time. We had a new driver in Firebird switching in halfway through the morning, and when SDC scratched a roll we couldn’t get her swapped in time, but she’s been doing well so far! A bit of a snafu, everyone was moving a little slowly on a cold, fast day (especially the chairman!) and not to mention an agent getting sick at rolls (no worries, they’re fine now!) At least we didn’t have another faceplant!
The dice rolled more favorably for us on Sunday! Things went really well, rolling fast and getting 24 individual rolls in.
As a bit of random trivia, too, if I’m not mistaken Allison (in Ascension) is at the head of the pack for rolls right now! I’m honestly pretty sure she has not missed a roll yet this semester.
PS – I love the artsy-fartsy black and white photos, super classy
Ben says:
not to be a party pooper, but she sadly has missed a roll, but you are correct that she has the most rolls at this point.
rlbrowne says:
Hey, is it just me or did you catch three buggies two-wheeling? Though it is definitely less dramatic than Borealis over there, Kamikaze in pic 41 looks like she may be.
anon says:
So Saturday rolls are already cancelled? That’s just embarrassing. Does anyone remember rolls being cancelled in the Fall due to “cold” ever?
Oh, and weather.com predicts a low tonight in the 15213 area code of 35. That’s practically balmy for Pittsburgh.
So what’s the real reason rolls are cancelled? Anonymous posts have to have a conspiracy theory, so it wouldn’t have anything to do with Fringe only having enough people to roll two buggies at a time last weekend would it? Fringe decides they can’t muster the people to roll so they just have their sweepstakes puppets cancel for everyone for…we’ll say…cold?
If rolls were cancelled at 35 year round, we would hardly ever roll in the spring. Yet its happening, because apparently no one will say anything. Well, I’m saying something. This is bullshit. Anyone who stands for this should be embarrassed. At the very least it should have been put to a vote.
Sam Swift says:
alright anon, a couple of things. 1. posting anonymously was funny when you were being funny, it’s just annoying when you’re complaining about things. 2. did you really post the same comment on three different stories? that’s just stupid, I deleted the others.
I’m not going to compile the stats for you, but you can see the roll counts here http://tinyurl.com/rollcountF11
I agree that Saturday’s forecast weather is not unpleasant enough to make rolls impossible. That said, cancelling for cold is something that has become pretty common in the last few years, its definitely not this committee acting way outside the recent norms. It’s worth noting that fall rolls now start a couple of weeks earlier than they did 5 years ago, so they can afford to cancel more readily and still get lots of practice.
Feel free to read through this thread if you want to relive the “are the current kids wimps for canceling when its cold” debate
http://cmubuggy.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=51
RMike says:
So unrelated to the general thread, but related to the link you posted.
Not sure who is running that spreadsheet, but I found an error. On the qualifications tab, the cell for Bungarus Krait calls to =Fall!G53, however G53 in the fall sheet is SAE’s roll count. Nothing major.
jixson says:
Careful, you might be uncovering another conspiracy. But I’ll be sure to let my puppets know that they need to fix that
anon says:
This misrepresents my views as an anonymous poster.
DeVos says:
So I’m feeding the trolls, but:
The windchill at sunrise according to NOAA seems to be around 27F, so even though the air temp might be above freezing, it will still be cold.
Most teams were apparently low on manpower, not just Fringe, so it seems like the conspiracy might be that a number of teams felt that manpower was a decent reason to cancel rolls.
Drivers can only carry over a limited number of rolls from Fall to Spring. Some of the experienced drivers have closer to 10x that number. An extra day isn’t exactly critical.
Paul D says:
Hey if we don’t have every day of rolls how will we qualify all the male drivers? Also Kevin shouldn’t you be at work?
Aileen says:
Psh. Work. Who works?
anon says:
Those all sound like excuses to put it to a vote, not to unilaterally cancel for bullshit reasons. At least with a vote we know who is a pussy and who wants to roll.
Maybe you’d like to share the data behind your completely unverified claims. How many drivers have rolled this semester? How many have 70 rolls? How many drivers who’ve rolled have less than 7?
Of course its not critical, but why is any organization standing for a decision without input? First they came for my last Saturday of Fall rolls, and I did nothing…
Aileen says:
I’m not sure why you’re bitching at a bunch of alumni. Go bother sweepstakes if this upsets you so much.
Jerry says:
Due to the varying nature of weather forecasts, I was keeping tabs on several different websites. Several of them were calling for below-30F temperatures for the first hour of rolls. It wasn’t an arbitrary call, the decision was made by *all* the organizations on the 11/7 Chairmen’s Meeting that if the temperature was below about 35, we would cancel or postpone rolls, for the sake of the drivers and pushers. (While a well-made modern monocoque is fairly well-insulated, old frame-and-shells like Firebird and Quasar get COLD, and we don’t want pushers injuring themselves unnecessarily. Since there usually have been only six or seven orgs out each day this fall, we don’t even get the time to go inside and warm up between rolls anymore.)
Also, I would question the strength of your accusations of cowardice when you’re content to lurk behind the veil of internet anonymity. And on the chance that you’re an alum, why do you even care? Not like I’m too surprised, a constant of humanity is that old people get angry whenever anything changes in any way from the way things were, at all, ever. Us kids these days just don’t appreciate anything, do we?
tl/dr; I’m just feeding the troll because the Fringe puppets have their claws in EVERYTHING