Posted on | by ben

We haven’t had rolls yet this year and this has some teams rightly worried about their raceday. It’s also left us with not much in the way of news for you guys so in lieu of a real rolls report, lets fill you in on what we know has happened and what is coming up for Carnival and Raceday.

Sunday Rolls update:

With the first day of rolls planned for this past Sunday morning, teams started to frantically try and change the decision when Sweepstakes cancelled rolls due to lack of attendance. The call came around 10:20pm Saturday night and within 15 minutes teams were rallying any bodies they could to cover the additional chores. For a brief time, rolls seemed to be un-cancelled. Unfortunately, sweepstakes swung back and held to their original call cancelling rolls. It turned into a beautiful morning and day but with a sad lack of closed roads.

Push Practice or Midnight Rolls (however you call it) started that night, as has become the tradition, allowing teams to hit the course for the first time. Assuming teams take advantage of these practice nights, they will have to be careful not to forget that drivers haven’t had a chance to see the freeroll yet this year. If the pushers get up to speed before the drivers are able to work out any changes that need to be made, we could be headed towards even more incidents, adding to an already abnormally high incident year.

Carnival Schedule, Registration, and Communications:

All of you by now have probably gotten the email from CMU inviting you to return for Carnival this year sending this nifty calendar of events page. It’s worth checking out and they’ve added a specific, buggy95 drop-down just for us! So if you’ve ever had a hard time finding all the buggy events that you want to go to, that should be easy and streamlined now (although it annoyingly changes back when you switch days).

Here are the public highlights:

Thursday Friday Saturday
Buggy Showcase @ noon  Prelim Races @ 8am  Exhibitions & Grudge Matches @ 8am
A Data Scientist’s History of Buggy – Talk by Sam Swift @ noon  BAA Luncheon @ 12:30pm  Finals Races @ ~9:30am
 BAA Social/Welcome at Hough’s Taproom @ 8pm  Alumni Panel @ ~1:30pm  Awards Ceremony @ 6pm

You may notice some changes and typical items missing from this list.

  • Deisgn comp – In an attempt to increase attendance of Design Comp, the students have decided to break up the event into two parts. The morning will have the typical Design competition starting at 10 where all competing buggies will need to be in Raceday configuration. After the actual competition part, teams will bring in whatever other buggies they would like for a public showcase at noon. This should hopefully help speed up the judging time with the thought being that a condensed viewing time will encourage more people stop by instead of them feeling as though they would be stuck there for the full 4 hours. We see this as an interesting experiment and are curious to how the audience will react to the change.
  • History of Buggy – After receiving his Alumni Award last year, Sam Swift has been tapped to take over Tom Wood’s typical “History of Buggy” presentation with his own twist. We’re excited to hear what he has to say now that he’s spent some time watching from afar.
  • Alumni Panel – The incorporation of the alumni panel with Design comp last year was fun, but was a little hectic and hard to listen too. In an attempt to remedy that, and hopefully draw a larger crowd, we’re planning on hosting it after our Friday Luncheon (which you should all register for right now!). The exact time is still being worked out, but we hope to use Giant Eagle Auditorium like we have in the past for our other presentations.
  • Hough’s Hangout – Currently absent from the list is our usual welcome event at the only bar with a buggy on the wall, Hough’s Taproom. This will be added to the schedule soon enough, so you can expect us to still be there ready to welcome you back to the Steel City. EDIT: Apparently this is on the schedule at the normal time (which we will not be moving from), it’s just not part of the Buggy95 track yet.
  • Sunday Breakfast – This has understandably been one of our least attended events of Carnival so for less confusion, we may just leave it out entirely this year.

 

CMU’s New Alumni Communications:

The Alumni Association has been working hard adjusting their mailings process and they’ve started adding specific groups to their list as opposed to just the college that you went to (i.e. CIT, Tepper, CFA, ect). So this year, expect to get mailings and communications from all the groups that you were a part of before like Kiltie Band, AB tech, Black Alumni Association (the other BAA), Scotch ‘n Soda, and others. These messages should be direct from the group and we are thinking about testing it out this year as well.

We’ll be getting these mailings ourselves, so after experiencing the new process, we will make a decision on whether to continue using them, or to go back to what we’ve been doing and only request membership and donations in exchange for our coverage and special member perks.

 

We’d love to have your thoughts, questions, and concerns so let us have it!

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