Good news everyone! This weekend of rolls was completely and totally 100% incident-free! That’s right; not a single buggy spun, crashed, or even came to an unintentional stop. In addition to this glorious piece of news, more roadwork has been done to the back hills and there are now shiny parking lines. This doesn’t seem like much, but it will take some of the guesswork out of measuring rollouts. With better comparisons between buggies, we can spend even more time trying to predict future success amongst the teams.

In less exciting news, it’s mid-October in Pennsylvania and we had the first snow of the season. It didn’t impact this weekend’s rolls, but was a friendly reminder that winter is coming. Fortunately, the weather for the next couple weeks looks damp, but not so cold as to allow for more snow. Hopefully we can keep rolling buggies until Thanksgiving.

In Attendance 

Observations (Saturday Gallery | Sunday Gallery)

• AEPi – Out on Sunday and rolling with Kamikze, AEPi had another clean weekend of rolls. They have picked up considerable speed throughout the semester and are now nearly making it to the Hill 3 line on their rollouts. We look forward to seeing their continued progress.
• Apex – Apex had Ember out Saturday without Phoenix, and while they had intended to roll both buggies on Sunday, Ember failed drops Sunday morning for an unknown reason. Ember was fully bagged on Saturday to accommodate for their driver recently switching over from Phoenix. For fairly obvious reasons it was a slow weekend for the team compared to previous seasons, but we expect the pace to pick up quickly as their drivers become more comfortable.
• CIA – CIA has started to ramp up their weekend practices and is now heating their wheels. Naturally this increased their freeroll speed and kept them in the running for biggest Hill 3 rollouts. Although the org is rolling on both green and blue wheels, the real speed seems to come from the green ones. Icarus got a turn with some faster wheels, but unfortunately hit the sewer grate while navigating the chute. The rollout was still decent, though. In other news, the pushers are still using parachutes to increase resistance. Stay weird, CIA.
• Fringe – Fringe was out and rolling strong both Saturday and Sunday. While they may not be the absolute fastest team rolling this fall, they are certainly the most consistent and quietest through the chute. Balius lost some mass in the form of a rear hatch and GoPro after hitting the sewer grate entering the chute, but that was fairly trivial in the grand scheme of things. Some have noted that the average Fringe chute turn is stiff (distinct turn vs smooth), and the current word is that they have 5 drivers rotating through 3 buggies.
• PhiDelt – PhiDelt was out and rolling with Perun both days this weekend. While they have certainly made progress through the fall, they are not rolling as fast as we know they can. Saturday’s driver finished the day with at least one bag, but Sunday was bag-free. We look forward to them getting back up to speed.
• PiKA – Although only Banshee made an appearance at rolls this weekend, PiKA was still one of the fastest teams rolling. They were notably zippy moving past the monument through the chute, but despite the speed, Banshee was not getting stellar rollouts. PiKA continues to avoid the raised green bike lane paint by flagging from the opposite side the street near the top of the freeroll. While they are the only org employing this strategy, it seems to be working reasonably well for them.
• SDC – As per usual, SDC was out in full force this weekend rolling with 4 buggies on both days. The team was bringing Malice out to the top of the hill so we can speculate that they are practicing with heated wheels. The warmed wheels seemed to be doing the trick as Malice was again leading the collective buggy pack with her freeroll speed, although some of that momentum was lost turning into the chute. Despite the loss of speed in the chute, SDC buggies were getting rollouts near the Baker/Porter steps. SDC’s drivers may still be trying to fine-tune their lines since the great re-paving of 2015. While drifting into the chute let SDC set a course record in 2008, there are too many other buggies going too fast for this to be a viable strategy anymore.
• SigEp – Pandora was out again this Saturday but stayed home on Sunday for unknown reasons. Pandora is still wining in the category for Loudest Buggy Rolling. While the team has been making decent progress throughout the semester, word is that the driver is hoping for an upgrade soon.
• SigNu – SigNu had Krait out rolling on Saturday. Still making good progress, their driver is down to a minimal number of bags. After rolls on Saturday, SigNu must have buried their SigNuts and bedded down in the wintry weather because they refrained from Sunday’s rolls.
• Spirit – There isn’t much to say about Spirit this weekend. They rolled smoothly and quickly on both Saturday and Sunday. One of their driver/buggy combinations did manage to break off a chunk of pavement when they rolled over the joint between the new and old pavement near the Phipps parking area. This only speaks to the team’s tough buggies and drivers.
• Robo – Yay! Transistor was out rolling again both days this weekend. Given how early they are out, it’s hard to get many details about their progress, but it seems that they are still operating teleop with not much known about the autonomous project. Sorry we don’t have any pictures of Transistor… all the alumni were too sleepy to catch their rolls.