Raceday 2025 is Coming! WRCT 88.3 FM Preview Broadcast Tonight at 6 PM

Posted on | by Matt Gallabrese | Leave a Comment on Raceday 2025 is Coming! WRCT 88.3 FM Preview Broadcast Tonight at 6 PM

WRCT BROADCAST

Tune in tonight at 6 PM EDT for a preview of Sweepstakes 2025. Moderated by our long-time play-by-play commentator Will Weiner, current students, and our Rolls Reporter will discuss all things buggy to get you hyped for Raceday.

Introducing our on-air talent:

  • Elena Harllee – She first witnessed buggy as a high school student, when she visited CMU during Raceday 2019 and fell in love with the spot. She joined Apex Buggy as a freshman and was build lead in 2022-2023, where she built Apex’s first forward trike. This year, she leads Sweepstakes as Sweepstakes Chairman. In her words, “The core principle of my role is to make buggy happen, which means I do everything except what the safety chair does. By far my favorite aspect has been getting to know all the the teams and their various characters and struggles. You can find me banging my head against a wall over chores logistics, shaking my fist at Pittsburgh rainclouds, or chatting with teams about what they need to make this year a great one.”
  • Elliot Escalante – He is a current MechE student with a Minor in Military Studies & International Affairs. As Assistant Chair, he tracks rolls, takes meeting notes, and keeps chores in check. Previously SDC.
  • Caity Santiago – She is studying Materials Science and Engineering, with an Additional Major in Biomedical Engineering. She is the Design Competition chair. In her words, “I have the great honor of planning and coordinating our carnival showcase! In addition to that I coordinate and plan design competition. I am most excited to plan the showcase activities. (yay coloring pages!)” Previously Apex.
  • Dan Becerra (2012) – He keeps the wider buggy community informed about the latest happenings in our sport and contributes to building a great Pittsburgh-area buggy alumni community! Previously CIA.

Moderator:

  • Will Weiner (DC’13) – He got into buggy through doing sports broadcasting with WRCT as a freshman at CMU. Somehow, he’s stayed in the play-by-play role for the races ever since. He now lives in nearby Braddock, PA, and runs a company called Xpogo, which manages the top athletes in the sport of extreme pogo sticking, which was a clear next step after buggy.

You can find the broadcast on air locally in Pittsburgh at 88.3 FM or stream it online from wrct.org! Join in the conversation via the BAA’s CMUBuggy Discord (cmubuggy.org/chat). Have any questions for the broadcasters? Ask them in the #wrctracedaypreview channel under Raceday-Specific Channels. You can also send any questions via comments to this post.

After what will be a great conversation, there will only be 17 hours left until Buggy Showcase (Thursday, April 3, 2025, at noon EDT) in Highmark Center – Auxiliary Gym (2nd Floor, Room 265A) . And, don’t forget our Prelims Lead Truck Auction, ending tomorrow night at 9 PM, so get your bids in while you can!

And, if you aren’t a member already, join now to receive this year’s Raceday Preview, featuring MechaJockey! Learn more at cmubuggy.org/membership.

See you on the course!

Merch & Podcast & Volunteers, Oh My!

Posted on | by Cynthia Xu | Leave a Comment on Merch & Podcast & Volunteers, Oh My!

Raceday is almost upon us, and you can show your love for buggy by ordering your very own BAA raceday shirt today! Orders are available this week only, so don’t wait around. 🤩

The funds raised by these shirts will help pay for things such as the Raceday alumni events and contributions, support Sweepstakes with things like payment for the Jumbotron, and give us funding for future Buggy Enhancement Grants to assist student buggy organizations across campus.

While you’re waiting for your shirt to arrive, why not tune into the new season of Chute the Sh*t? The first episode is out now on all your favorite streaming platforms… and I hear there’s a rotisserie chicken spinner involved… 🐔

Finally, just like how other premier classes of motorsport rely on volunteer marshals, our premier (and only) class of motorless Buggy racing is made possible through the assistance of our wonderful volunteers. You can become a volunteer for Raceday 2025 today by visiting https://cmubuggy.org/volunteer, or https://cmubuggy.org/broadcast-volunteer if you’re interested in helping out with this year’s broadcast/becoming a broadcaster! 📢

That’s right, YOU can be a Raceday 2025 broadcaster. You can give everyone the play-by-play during the races, tell us your favorite Buggy stories on our pre-race broadcast, and/or work behind the scenes to help us create or edit Raceday-related videos! Remember that there are also time slot options on those forms if you can only commit to certain times—we’ll be thrilled to get all the help we can.

A huge thank-you in advance to all of you who will be contributing your time and energy to Raceday 2025, as volunteers or as broadcast volunteers. We are immensely grateful for your continued support and look forward to seeing you on Raceday with your BAA raceday shirt on and the new Chute the Sh*t season playing!

Giving Day 2024!

Posted on | by Cynthia Xu

Giving CMU Day is here! Now is the perfect time to donate to the BAA and, in doing so, support buggy enhancement initiatives, Raceday 2025, and so much more.

Our official Giving Day donation page can be found at https://cmubuggy.org/givingtuesday-baa.

It’s worth noting that this year, alumni who make a gift of $25-$100 will have their gift matched 1:1 by the Board of Trustees! There is $100,000 in matching funds available, so matches will go fast—be sure to make your donation earlier rather than later to take advantage of this and further support our efforts across the year and on Raceday.

In the past, your generosity has made it possible for teams and individuals involved with buggy to purchase materials for constructing a reusable mold, research and develop steering and brake refurbishment processes, and invest in video and photo upscaling software to process archival footage. Your contributions have also directly facilitated the acquisition of jumbotrons and the organization of Buggy Bash for Raceday. We hope that you will lend us your continued support this Giving Day and will keep helping us make the experience of buggy more engaging and accessible for students, alumni, fans, and family.

Remember that if you’re not already a member, a donation of at least $20 today can also cover your BAA membership for the year. You can learn more on our membership page.

Thank you for your support, and happy Giving CMU Day!

BAA Survey & New Board Member!

Posted on | by Rob Siemborski

A few quick news updates from the BAA!

First, congratulations to Cynthia Xu, who has been elected as our new Comms chair! Cynthia is a 2023 SPIRIT Alum and we’re excited to have her join the board!

Second, we recently sent out our October member’s newsletter. If you are a member (check the list), and you didn’t get it in your email, please make sure we have your most recent contact information by filling in this member update form.

Finally, we’re running a survey for everyone who considers themself a part of the buggy community to let us know what matters most to you. Regardless of if you are a student, alumni, or just a fan, please give us your feedback!

Composites For Buggy – A Crash Course

Posted on | by Diya Nuxoll

Happy Thursday buggy fans!

We at the BAA Teams Committee are taking advantage of a weekend without rolls to run our first ever “Composites 101” course for current buggy students.

When? Saturday 9/28, 2-3pm
Where? Wean Hall, 4625

We’ll be covering topics such as:

  • What are the pros and cons of different carbon fiber weave types?
  • What are the best core material choices for a team on a budget?
  • What is the difference between a wet layup and resin infusion? Can I use the same materials? And what the heck is prepreg carbon fiber?
  • How do we validate composite parts in industry… and why does that not necessarily work for us in the buggy world?

This course is geared to be accessible to new teams and freshmen buggy mechanics– but there should be plenty of interesting info for more experienced buggy mechanics as well.

Alumni– no need to feel left out! If you’re interested in getting involved with the BAA Teams Committee, to help us expand our collection of open-source buggy resources, please email Diya (BAA Quartermaster / Teams Committee Lead) at diyanuxoll@cmubuggy.org.

2024 BAA Election Results

Posted on | by Sam Connor

The polls are closed, and the results are in! Congratulations to our newly elected BAA Board Members for the 2024-2026 term:

  • Vice President: Rachael Schmitt
  • Secretary: Sydney Baker
  • Treasurer: Wade Gordon
  • Broadcast: Matt Gallabrese
  • Communications: Dave Singh
  • Quartermaster: Diya Nuxoll
  • Rolls Reporter: Dan Becerra

Additionally, per the process for a mid-term vacancy, Jeremy Tuttle was elected as BAA President for the remainder of the 2023-2025 term.

Congratulations again to those elected, and thank you to everyone who ran in the elections this year!

As a final update, the BAA board has voted to rename the Webmaster position to be the Information Services Manager (ISM), in order to better reflect how that role has evolved over time.

Voting Open for BAA Elections 2024-2026

Posted on | by Rob Siemborski

Vote Now: https://cmubuggy.org/vote

Elections for the BAA board terms of 2024-2026 are now open! Voting is open to any current member of the BAA. All races require at least 25 votes. Voting is open until May 29.

Uncontested Races: (Candidate must have more votes in favor than opposed)

  • Vice President: Rachel Schmitt
  • Secretary: Sydney Baker
  • Treasurer: Wade Gordon
  • Broadcast: Matt Gallabrese
  • Quartermaster: Diya Nuxoll

Contested Races: (Uses ranked choice voting, candidate must win a majority of votes)

  • Communications/ Marketing
    • Emily Forney
    • Dave Singh
  • Rolls Reporter
    • Dan Becerra
    • Emily Forney
    • James Wong

Vote Now: https://cmubuggy.org/vote

BAA Election Nominations 2024

Posted on | by Sam Connor

With the dust of Raceday finally settled, it’s that time of year again – BAA election season! For the next week, we will be looking for nominations of CMU buggy alumni to fill the following roles:

President
Vice President
Secretary
Treasurer
Communications
Quartermaster
Broadcast
Rolls Reporter

In addition, the appointed Events chair position is open for self-nominations.

The submission form can be found HERE. You can read more about the roles and the incumbents for positions up for re-election there, and nominate your friends. Nominees can be any graduated CMU alum who has not already served two terms in that position.

Nominations will be accepted through May 14th, after which nominees will have a week to accept and write their platforms.

Current BAA officers and chairs can be found here if you have any questions!

Raceday 2024 is in the Books!

Posted on | by Rob Siemborski | 1 Comment on Raceday 2024 is in the Books!

That’s a wrap on Raceday 2024! We here at the BAA very much want to thank all of the students, staff, and alumni who came out (or joined on the livestream) to make this year an amazing success. If you were in town, we hope you got a chance to see not only the races, but also catch up with other Buggy fans at one of the many events around campus.

We’ve completed our initial work at putting the results into our history database, and you can browse all the rankings and other awards on our site now.

We’d still love to get photos or videos, if you have any, you can join our discord and see the instructions for how to upload the photos and get credit there.

Don’t Miss Your 2024 Raceday Preview!

Posted on | by Diya Nuxoll

Less than 1 week until raceday, which means that we at the BAA are busy preparing your Raceday Preview for RD 2024.

In order to make sure you recieve the 2024 Raceday Preview, as well as all other BAA communications in the leadup to raceday, we wanted to push a few gentle reminders:

  • Check to see if you’re on our member list.
  • If you have already renewed your membership but are not getting our BAA Membership newsletters (most recently, our Winter newsletter on Dec 27), it’s possible that we have an out-of-date email address on file. Please use our Membership Update Form to let us know, and we will get this corrected.
  • If you haven’t already re-upped your BAA membership for 2024– now is as good a time as any! If you are renewing within the couple of weeks before raceday, please also use our Membership Update Form to let us know, so that we can get you on our membership list ASAP.

Other things you can do to satisfy your Raceday prepper needs:

  • Sign up to volunteer. We could always use more help to make raceday successful.
  • Join our discord to talk about the race with your fellow fans. Alumni, students, and all other buggy fans are welcome!
  • Check out our Podcast. Season 5 of CTS has some amazing episodes covering topics from the new Sweepstakes advisor, to how the video broadcast got its start in the early 00s.