Weather prevented rolls this Saturday, but buggies were out rolling Sunday with far fewer Uber cabs and fire trucks. The Speed Trap system was out again and after some slight modifications was performing much better than last weekend. One improvement was implementation of additional cameras to test accuracy of the speeds gathered. The results are promising. Tom Wood and Ben Brown have compiled all the collected data, although it has not yet been labeled by buggy. You can find the unlabeled data in its own post tomorrow. So far it looks like PiKA, Fringe, SDC, and CIA are taking the top spots. No surprise, given last semester.
Despite the rapidly approaching Raceday, only a handful of teams are coming out. Buggies were rolling this weekend with a minimum quorum. Those teams that did come out collected nearly half a dozen rolls each.
In Attendance
| Org | Saturday | Sunday |
|---|---|---|
| Apex | Ember, Phoenix | |
| CIA | Impulse, Equinox | |
| Fringe | Balius, Bissa, Beacon | |
| PiKA | Banshee, Raptor | |
| SDC | Malice, Havoc, Bane, Avarice | |
| Spirit | Inviscid, Zuke, Fuko, Seraph, King Pin |
Observations (Sunday Gallery)
-
- Apex
– Apex made their triumphant return to rolls this weekend rolling both Ember and Phoenix. Ember was looking suspiciously like a Spirit buggy – stripped down in preparation for a new paint job. Could they be starting a Spirit-like new paint every year tradition? 
CIA – In usual fashion, CIA was out with a good turn out and ready to pass-test. Although Impulse was able to successfully pass Equinox, the latter caught and passed in the chute beating Impulse to Hill 3. All the excitement of Raceday with only 2 buggies and one team. Uncharacteristically CIA was only out those two buggies this weekend.
Fringe – Fringe was putting out some impressive freeroll speeds, rolling without fairing covers for much the day. Their bare wheels were shown off to the world. We’re not sure if they just lost their fairings or if something else is afoot. One alum noted that their pusher team isn’t moving quite as fast as we would predict, but we all suspect that Truck Weekend will see some beefier pushing.
PiKA – Banshee was out fainingless and back to her blazing speeds. She was by far the fastest buggy rolling this weekend. Raptor made a commendable effort, but was very much left in the dust. The drivers have made some great improvements on chute lines as well as we are seeing considerably less skidding. Unfortunately the PiKA pushers are not yet at the same caliber as their buggies/drivers and on several occasions they had to get help from CIA and Spirit to catch their buggies out of the chute and get them up the hill.
SDC – SDC was out with a nice pusher/mechanic turn out. They were ramping up their production this weekend in clear preparation for Raceday operations. It appears that they have started heating wheels already as Havoc/Malice were brought out at the last second to Hill 2 and was given a rushed countdown. There is definitely some voodoo going on behind the scenes as their speeds have dramatically increased in the freeroll. On the uphill side of things, their pushers are looking good, but don’t yet appear to be giving it their Raceday-all.- SigEp – SigEp popped into rolls, but lacking any flaggers or pushers, they left before the morning got underway. At least one disgruntled alumnus has expressed their extreme displeasure at the lack of rolls this semester. While we’ll hope they retain their contender status in Sweepstakes, this might be indicative of where they will place on Raceday.
Spirit – Unfortunately Spirit continues to be our source of accident-related news. Inviscid spun out and Kingpin suffered a relatively large crash when the driver appeared unable to turn into the chute. Reports from the Monument say that flying hay was visible from the Freeroll. The driver was shaken but suffered only minor injuries as far as we know. Hopefully the team will be in better control of their buggies come Raceday.
- Apex
—
Rolls Report Contributors:
Anthony P.
Ben M.
x says:
I have to say as an alum I’m really disappointed by the quality of this years rolls reports. Just by looking at photos I can see these incredibly interesting points were totally missed.
Apex: Besides the paint there is now an empty hole where the tie rod used to go through the shell. Looks like she also got a much needed steering overhaul which should hopefully fix the instability shown on race day multiple times last year.
Fringe: After not rolling all fall Bolt was back (yes fringe has two buggies in wrapping paper now) and has been converted to roll on regular xootr sized wheels. Also with x1 gone it seems fringe has stopped messing around with inline skates and has returned to a sized wheel they have had much success on. Lastly will fringe build this year or is this going to be their build. If they built on top of fixing balius which broke on race day last year and converting bolt that’s a really busy year.
Pika: Rolling big wheels on raptor again and the hideous grey duct tape seen last week on her windshield has been replaced by standard black gorilla tape. Womder if they broke a windshield.
SDC: Bane out for the first time this year and no vice, their second newest buggy. Also rolling blacks on the front and whites out back on some rolls amd whites on the front with blacks out back on the others. Wonder if theyre experimenting with different hardness wheels to see the effect on chute grip.
Spirit: We need to start keeping a crash count on them. Seriously this is back to spirit levels of five years ago…
DeVos says:
So you’re volunteering to step up and help write them then?
Given that this entire site is run by volunteers and the rolls report is written by alums who’ve decided to get up each weekend, go to rolls, and then spend their time compiling a report, I’m happy to have anything show up at all.
Zatch says:
Seriously. Harsh criticism of a volunteer effort for entitled alum that couldn’t be bothered to sign their name.
ben says:
I’m sorry you feel that way X, we’ve been working hard on developing the speed trap system which was talked about at the beginning of the report and it seems that it may have affected our reporting to some degree.
As we get closer to Raceday, our senses get heightened and we should be more able to pick up on the more subtle details which you were able to pick out. That said, there will always be things that we unfortunately miss so, if you’re willing to share it, we would love to add your analysis.
Please feel free to reach out to us at news@cmubuggy.org if you notice anything noteworthy that you would like us to add to the report.
Shafeeq says:
Focusing on timing has meant that I’m not in a position to see anything interesting so far. That’s going to be a tradeoff come truck weekend – do people want to know freeroll & full course times, or the sort of observations we’ve made in the past?
Raptor was pretty clearly the B-team, so I suspect they just threw on whatever wheels were convenient and still round.
Is Bolt really back? Haven’t seen it in the roll counts.
Given that it was about 20 minutes to get through the whole roll order, it’s an impressive job by the SDC mechanics to keep up the supply of heated wheels.
Spirit may be crashing a bunch, but they’re out with a lot of buggies & pushers. And their fastest buggy at least is going downhill faster than they were 5 years ago. Like last raceday, they should keep up with CIA & Apex until the chute flag, but afterwards is a different story.
No new buggy from Fringe/CIA/Apex yet? If they miss another weekend, it’ll be getting late in the game to drop in a new A buggy. Though only Apex needs one. And none of them can rely on their B team to get them into finals.
chayes says:
Rolls report guys, I’m really interested to get some first hand analysis on how bolt is rolling compared to before the switch and the other buggies that fringe has. Also did the ember driver look like she could track straighter or turn more smoothly this week?
Bordick says:
X. Get out there and write your own report. Don’t have the courage to sign your name, nor the motivation to attend rolls yourself. The only comment regarding the rolls report should be “Thanks.”
Now, Mrs. X makes some good observations regarding the modifications of several buggies. I’d love to tie that back to the speed trap, which is super cool. When the trap says “Blue Fringe” I’d love to know which blue that is.
Lastly, how many times will Spirit spin before the safety chair takes action? They have an accident every weekend of rolls. How is that OK by the Safety chair? I love experimentation. I love Spirit as an org. Safety takes priority over all that.
A simple analysis would show that they have trouble making it through the chute. At some point, steps need to be taken to modify what they do in order to show that they are taking the risks to their driver seriously. It’s not a driver training issue, They are clearly rolling so close to the edge of spin that small deviations mean the difference between making it to hill 3 versus impacting the bales.
The rules state:
“An on-going demonstration that the buggy’s steering and control systems can be operated in a stable
manner. The stability and performance of a buggy’s steering and control systems and of that buggy’s
driver shall be observed by the Safety Chairman, and/or anyone designated by that Chairman, when-
ever that buggy is participating in any type of practice session at Carnegie Mellon University.
If the Safety Chairman determines that a buggy and/or its driver is not stable, that buggy and/or
driver shall not be permitted to participate in any subsequent freeroll practices or push practices until
the cause of that instability has been eliminated. The Safety Chairman may require an additional
design inspection or may ban a buggy from any future practices or races if that buggy consistently
exhibits erratic control or performance at any practice session.”
Has the cause for this instability been eliminated? Buggy is fun. Buggy should be fun. It’s not worth risking the health of a driver.
Shafeeq says:
IIRC, the faster of the two Blue Fringes was always Bissa last weekend.
Depending on the lighting, it is hard to tell Malice & Havoc apart by color.
4 teams run fast-ish standard trikes, 3 of them have better success at getting through the turn and run buggies that are rather similar to each other. On the one hand, it is mind-boggling that Spirit hasn’t yet figured out the ways in which they’re not like the others and how those might be affecting the outcome. On the other hand, they have been working through the shift to solid wheels, then driver training, and those all turned out to be part but not all of the problem.
Bordick says:
Shafeeq, I don’t think the “shift to solid wheels” argument really holds any water here. They were on solids on raceday in 2008. That’s 7 years of shifting. They should have figured it out by now. I just can’t believe they continue to work small tweaks, when what is clearly needed is some fairly significant structural change.
Z says:
For one let’s talk about that steering. It was never a “good” idea, and doesn’t seem to work at all on the small wheels.
Bordick says:
What I can glean from pictures and the rolls reports:
Spins by Spirit:
Sep 20: 2
Sep 27: 1
Oct 11: 2
Nov 7: 2
Feb 20: 2
Feb 28: 2
I didn’t want to throw concepts out without some data.
the Pope says:
Spirit definitely needs to get their act together wrt the chute but the same could have been said not long ago about sdc. It is not clear how to draw the line wrt letting them work at it vs stepping in.
The good news is they appear to be trying to improve and approaching it with a level of sanity. Per the speed trap times, they seem to be waiting until they are stable before they push for more speed. That is to be commended. The bad news is that they still likely have much speed in hand.and as race day looms, the temptation grows stronger to let some of that out. Spirit seemed to be on the cusp of solving this not that long ago but it may have simply been a case of lower speeds masking the problem. (tis difficult to tell from 2000 miles away). Now that we have the speed trap ( huge kudos BTW), we get a better sense of exactly how big of a challenge they face. I cannot imagine that they are not more concerned about solving it than the rest of us.