Rolls Report: March 25 & 26 – Warm Weather and Good Turn Outs

Spring has sprung! Since hanging up the stop flags and climbing harnesses in November for the long winter, we’ve had only one occasion to roll thanks to a lack of attendance, freezing temperatures, and various forms of uncooperative weather. We went from having to cancel rolls for sub-freezing temperatures to waking up Saturday and Sunday morning to sixty five degree weather, before dawn. Leave the coats at home, let’s roll some buggies!

The Safety Chair politely reminded the teams that starting their pass testing earlier rather than later was a good idea. Consequently, Sunday’s rolls could have made for excellent day time TV: You get a pass test, and YOU get a pass test! EVERYONE ATTEMPTS A PASS TEST! There were pass-tests all day today cumulating in 7 successful passes.

Buggy alumni were out timing this weekend trying to grab some empirical data for the imminent heat-selection. We were tweeting about the efforts, but some data is more impenetrable than others. Take care not to disturb the trip-wires too much during rolls, this data collection is for your benefit.

A little about the new system: Created by Mark Estes, it is a series laser trip sensors connected via radio mesh network to record roll times via GPS clock sync and automatically calculates speeds and splits. The system got to a late start both days because, as it turns out, it takes a while to set up and align 4 laser sensors and a master station.
Saturday we collected some data, but couldn’t connect to the stop sign sensor. In addition, the hill 3 sensor wasn’t getting triggered (probably due bad alignment). So, some data, but not informative data. Also, due to the chaos of just getting the system running, we didn’t keep notes to attribute buggies. On Sunday we again had trouble connecting system together, and ultimately gave up halfway through day. On the docket for this week is to test the range of the sensors and determine how much battery level affects it.

In Attendance 

Org Saturday Sunday
Apex  Phoenix, Ember Phoenix, Ember
CIA  Equinox, Orca, Icarus Tempest, Orca, Icarus
Fringe  Bolt, Bissa, Beacon, NB17 Boson, Bolt, Bissa, Beacon
PiKA  Banshee, Cliodhna Banshee, Cliodhna
SAE  Lucy
SDC  Malice, Havoc, Bane, Avarice, Vice Malice, Havoc, Bane Avarice, Vice
SigEp Barracuda, Kraken
SigNu Krait
Spirit  Inviscid, Zuke, King Pin Inviscid, Zuke, King Pin

Observations (Saturday Gallery | Sunday Gallery) Continue reading

No Rolls, Carnival Report Instead!

With a cold last few weekends, Sweepstakes hasn’t been able to hold rolls since the earliest Spring Rolls start in years. With Spring break looming over the next two weekends, and an inclination for low turnout, they’ve also decided to cancel those weekends. This puts the next possible rolls for March 25 & 26. We’re hoping for a greater showing then along with potentially 6 new buggies that are in the works!

Given the lack of reporting material, we’ll take this opportunity to share some Carnival info with you, including:

  • Buggy Events
  • Volunteering
  • Preview Info
  • Auction
  • Elections!
  • New Race Format?

Continue reading