All of a sudden spring break is behind us and we’re in the 4 week sprint to raceday. We stodgy alumni thought the kids were taking a bit of a gamble not scheduling rolls for either weekend of spring break, but it seems to have worked out pretty well for them. The first weekend of the break would have been entirely rained out anyway, and the skies were clear this weekend so it’s all good. Saturday was one of those super slow days with no clear culprit, but everyone shook off the rust by Sunday and put nearly twice as many buggies down the hill in the same amount of time. We’re up to 11 rolling organizations, and 5 new buggies in the class of 2011 (plus Apache from the late fall); raceday must be near.
In Attendance (buggies newest to oldest, 2011 buggies, buggies qualified with at least one driver)
| Org | Saturday | Sunday |
|---|---|---|
| AEPi | Kamikaze, Zephyrus, Robobuggy | Zephyrus |
| CIA | Ascension, Frejya, Renaissance, Quasar | Ascension, Frejya, Renaissance, Quasar |
| Fringe | NBXI, Borealis, Blizzard | NBXI, Borealis, Blizzard |
| KapSig | Apache | Apache |
| PiKA | RD2011, Chimera, Knightfall | RD2011, Chimera, Knightfall, Zeus |
| Pioneers | Chaos | Chaos |
| SAE | Rubicon | Rubicon |
| SDC | Bane, Avarice, Psychosis, Rage | Bane, Avarice, Malice, Psychosis, Rage |
| SigEp | Mamba, Peregrine, Pandora | Mamba, Peregrine, Pandora |
| SigNu | Skua | Skua |
| Spirit | Fuko, Haraka | Mapambazuko, Fuko, Haraka |
Observations (Saturday gallery)
Fringe brought out their new buggy. It was covered in a baggy pajama-style outfit and bodly labeled on one side as BAMF and on the other as NBXI. It seemed to roll very smoothly and quietly for a new reverse tryke. It was hard to say too much about the design with the temporary covering obscuring the lines, and the large boxy temporary fairings covering the front wheels. Casual observers won’t notice much different from the rest of Fringe’s fleet, but the design looks to be somewhere between SDC and PiKA’s builds in terms of experimentalness.
SigEp also added a buggy to the class of 2011. The buggy’s name is Mamba, joining Barracuda and Peregrine in SigEp’s newish tradition of exotic predatory animals names. I didn’t notice any striking departures from their previous designs, and it rolled decently for a first day out. The windshield is exceptionally small, with a very low brow.- MAJOR UPDATE : Spirit also debuted a new buggy on Sunday named Mapambazuko (meaning “sunrise” in Swahili). I left town after rolls on Saturday, and nobody told me about it when I asked what happened Sunday. I’ll have to have some words with my sources. Mapa (is there a preferred nickname yet?) got 3 rolls in on Sunday. This is the first new buggy for Spirit since 2004 and I’ve got to admit I didn’t put much weight in rumors that they were close to finishing one this year. Congrats to them for getting it on the course, and my apologies for snubbing the debut. It will be prominently featured next week.
SigNu made the right call, manned up, and got back on the course. I don’t have any inside info, but if I had to infer from what I saw, the brothers taking over the program are almost all new. It’s too bad that they weren’t able to retain more knowledge in the house, but it’s great that there was a contingent not willing to let the program die. On her first roll Saturday, their new driver started to head to the wrong side of the monument on her first roll, veered back to the correct side and then hit the brakes and spun to a stop near the chute flag. After the alum driving the follow truck talked things over, they decided they were OK to continue around the course. That wasn’t enough excitement though, so the two mechanics assigned to catch the buggy at the finish line wandered back to the tent. The hill 5 ran full speed over the line and let go, sending the buggy careening towards PiKA and CIA’s buggies waiting to roll. Credit to the hill 5 who was able to catch back up, grab the pushbar, and drag his feet to stop the buggy before it smashed into the competition. More action on Sunday when they side-swiped the outside bales. They only got two rolls from the weekend to count towards qualification, but the important thing is that they made it out.
PiKA’s Chimera spun in the chute, with some chute observers saying it looked like the rear wheel popped out of its attachment before or during the spin. That’s a failure we’ve seen a couple of times from Chimera in the past, so it could be what happened. The impact late on the inside bales was light and it seemed to actually put the driver in a cheerful mood. When I got down there she was hopping about from bale to bale and then stuck this alluring pose for me, the paparazzi.
KapSig was out both days, but only got one roll in each day. Their driver, Amy has driven before so that was actually enough to qualify her in their new buggy Apache. When Apache came out in the fall it had a pretty decent silver paint job, but they weren’t satisfied and have gone back to the body shop and applied an intense layer of Bondo. If they have the manpower to sand it all smooth it ought to be pretty slick. Better buy some big packs of 80 grit.
Spirit was back on regular xootrs after last week’s spoke failure, but they were still rolling on custom compounds. No spins on the weekend, and they didn’t look to have slowed it down very much, so maybe they figured out the right combination of tweaks.- Lots of pass tests going on as teams try to get that requirement out of the way while they still have a buggy going slowly. There were multiple cases of waiting too long to send the second buggy, and one funny one by Fringe in which the eager hill 2 jumped the gun and the pass happened about 4 feet into the freeroll before the follow car started moving. Not that I’m criticizing, I was also terrible at timing those.
- Robobuggy was sent down the hill too fast for its remote human driver and it crashed into the first curb. The front fork was reportedly a bit bent up, so hopefully they aren’t too sidetracked working on the mechanical basics while they try to move towards the actual robotic driving. UPDATE: It was the steering servo’s fault, some light damage, the fork was fine, and the software is already pretty well in place. Can’t wait to see it roll all the way around.
- SDC, PiKA, and Fringe were at the top of the freeroll leader board for the weekend, closely spaced but in that order. All three of the elite orgs seem to be putting down no-sweat efforts on the downhill while they work on the rest of the early-spring details with new buggies and new pushers. Early spring is pretty much over though, and I would be surprised if we don’t see some heat soon. Spirit, SigEp, and CIA are in the next level with Spirit 5-6 seconds off of the best times from the weekend.
- CIA posted their best times with their new buggy, Ascension which is encouraging. SDC’s Bane is right at the top of the list, less than a second behind their standard bearer, Malice. PiKA’s “RD2011” is 4 seconds behind Chimera but in the lead cluster after 8 rolls. Fringe’s new buggy sped up quickly, and is already ahead of most teams (although well behind their best) with one weekend on the odometer. SigEp’s Mamba was 10 seconds behind their fastest roll in the middle of the pack. KapSig is showing some promise, posting some consistent times that are already better than SAE, Pioneers, and AEPi. They’re only 6 seconds behind CIA’s time from the weekend. 6 seconds sounds like a lot to top tier teams, but when you’re in the 75 second freeroll range, there are lots of places to find a few seconds.
- Sweepstakes was able to work out a deal with the city re: push practice, and so it got underway early last week. The resolution was mostly that the CMU’s police and insurance would vouch for safe push practice or take care of anything that might happen. There are also some new barricading and safety policies.
If you’re worried about the squirrel in the lead picture from this post, don’t worry he made it safely across the road in front of Mamba. If that’s disappointing to you, I’m guessing you’re a driver.
Jake Reid says:
Robobuggy’s failure was actually not from the RC driver screwing up but because the steering servo locked up. Steering fork is intact but there is some other damage, none of which should be terribly difficult to fix with a little angle stock. The algorithms are already in place to potentially drive the freeroll autonomously, we just need more video data of the backhills before we can roll it without RC.
Also, Zephyrus was out and completed a roll on Saturday.
Sam Swift says:
Thanks for the details and corrections Jake. Zeph has a big 0 in sweepstakes spreadsheet for Saturday, so you might want to check with them if you want credit for it.
SpearIT says:
Any word on Spirit’s new buggy??
Carl says:
Yeah Sam, WTF?
Moron on the Course says:
Spirit definitely had something different out… new buggy seems to have a rear windscreen O.o
Is it confirmed new or are they resurrecting more zombie buggies?
Sam Swift says:
Whoa! I can’t believe I missed the new Spirit buggy story. I left town after rolls on Saturday and none of my sources mentioned it when I asked them for observations from Sunday. I’ll update the post pronto and do some major recon next week. My bad!
Carl says:
Dunno about a rear windscreen as haven’t seen any finished pictures but it’s new.
Zoo says:
The reason for Skua stopping on the downhill on Saturday was a stop flag thrown by some other org directly infront of our own flag. By the time the alum and I ran out to see if the driver was alright, the flagger disappeared and we had no idea who it was. I just want to point out that behavior like that is unacceptable and dangerous for drivers.
Anonymous says:
Some flaggers told me they saw Skua going the wrong way and heard someone in the follow car yelling, probably at the driver to go left, but they thought they heard “stop.”
Anonymous says:
Spirit buggy nickname is Zuke :)
Mapambazuko says:
“Mapa”? The word on the back hills is the new one is called “Zuke” or something. Its about time they built a new one…
Zoo says:
Well, by the time the flag was thrown, Skua was going in the correct direction towards our flag. The stop flag came out literally seconds before she was going to pass it.
Anonymous says:
Ah, I see. Well, hopefully that won’t happen again. There are a lot of new orgs or orgs with new people and flaggers, so hopefully it was a learning experience at the very least…
NBXI says:
BAMF – Brakes and Moves Forward
Flagger says:
From my point of view, a certain org’s top flag misheard the yells of “left” from the follow car as yells of “stop”, and proceeded to confuse the rest of the top and chute flaggers by screaming it. In his defense, it did look like it was heading straight for the island from the sidewalk, so it seems fairly innocent to me.
NBXI says:
or if you prefer:
BAMF – Brakes And Moves Fast
Anonymous says:
I’d bet kapsig isn’t using Bondo – that stuff’s heavy, and it seems like they know enough to use something better than that. Not a part of their org though, so I don’t know for sure, could be.
Ascension says:
…”Bamf” is definitely within the Fringe naming scheme… nice one, guys.
Let me try…
Ascension – Assuredly serious contender earning notoriety, specifically into owning noobs.
…I dunno, it sounds a bit forced ;)
Zatch says:
How the hell did he guess that? I really figured that this acronym would at least stay secret until raceday…
Ben says:
I miss FRBRF or whatever it was for bristol (I think), though I do like: Brakes And Moves Forward good to the point name.
Banyan says:
Banyan Again Moves Faster
Bonsai says:
Banyan Ages, Moving Forward