Composites Forum Today

Posted on | by carsenkline | 4 Comments on Composites Forum Today

This is from John Thornton, former Fringe head mechanic and current employee in the Robotics Department who is developing a long-needed center for composites. There is a forum today on campus at 4:30. See the full details.

Composite technology has long been an underground phenomenon at Carnegie Mellon. It is now time to bring this movement into the open for the first time.

Please join the newly formed Composites Development Center, part of Carnegie Mellon’s Field Robotics Center, as it hosts Carnegie Mellon’s first Composites Forum this Monday, November 4, from 4:30 to 6:15 p.m. in Newell-Simon Hall room 1305. The discussion will feature NASA Senior Advisor for Composites and Structures Mark Shuart, as well as an overview of the Composites Development Center, Sweepstakes (Buggy), the Society of Automotive Engineers, and the Solar Boat project team. The Composites

Forum will be an opportunity to engage in a discussion about the evolution of composites development at Carnegie Mellon, current research and projects, and the future of composites technology and education at CMU.

Please forward this information along to anyone you think might be interested in composites development, current NASA projects, Buggy, SAE, or the Solar Boat project. We hope to see you there.

***Event Recap***

What: Composites Forum at Carnegie Mellon
When: Monday, November 9, from 4:30 – 6:15 pm [Pizza will be served]
Where: Newell-Simon Hall Rm. 1305 on Carnegie Mellon’s Pittsburgh campus

Thank you,
John Thornton and the Composites Development Center team
Field Robotics Center
Carnegie Mellon University

Driver tank tops available from Sweepstakes

Posted on | by Sam Swift | 4 Comments on Driver tank tops available from Sweepstakes

Sweepstakes is making and selling a run of driver-specific tank tops, and they were nice enough to ask if any alumni or other cmubuggy.org readers would like one while the order is going in.

Click on the thumbnail to take a look at the full design.

  • On pre-order now for $11
  • expected to arrive in 2 weeks
  • specify size: women’s S or women’s M
  • can be picked up at rolls or mailed to you
  • email sweepstakes chair, Jess Thurston to order –> jessicathurston532@gmail.com

Rolls efficiency statistics 2009

Posted on | by Sam Swift | 7 Comments on Rolls efficiency statistics 2009

As we start a new year of rolls with a new sweepstakes committee, I realized that we computed some stats on the number of rolls in the fall of last year, but forgot to follow up on that in the spring.  The idea with these stats is just to give sweepstakes and the orgs some feedback on how well their partnership is doing at getting buggies around the course.

So here is the summary for the 2009 buggy season: Continue reading →

Orgs come, orgs go

Posted on | by Sam Swift | 6 Comments on Orgs come, orgs go

Most years in buggy see the birth, rebirth, or death of an organization but the transition from 2009 to 2010 is looking busier than usual.  We hate to see anyone go, but it looks like the net migration might come out even or positive this year, so hopefully we can stay right around 50 teams on raceday.  The more the merrier.  Here’s the breakdown …

Continue reading →

More paving – this time Hill 1

Posted on | by Sam Swift | 1 Comment on More paving – this time Hill 1

CMU’s Parking & Transportation Services just sent out a campus-wide e-mail announcing that Tech Street (hill 1) will be repaved starting next week.  Looks like the letter writing and phone calling by sweepstakes and others was effective.  Thanks guys.  Let’s hope they go all the way up past Frew Street and fix the gnarly seam that runs across all three lanes.

So we’ll be back up to heats of 3 next year, and it can only make those hill 1-2’s faster.  As if these kids need any more help throwing down fast times.  They’re just making us alumni of the last 20 years look bad now.

Thanks Pittsburgh!

Buggy Books of History Countdown : T-0.3

Posted on | by Sam Swift

Oops! With the chaos of getting the auction ready last week, I wrote half of this and forgot to finish or post it. I’m sure all of you out there were waiting anxiously to complete your collection, so I apologize for the delay.  Here is an abridged version of the narrative.

All of the buggy books (starting with 1965!) are scanned and the DVDs are burned so it must be almost raceday.  Indeed, this is our last post in the Buggy Books of History series.  Make sure to find us at design comp or at our reception on the Skibo Gym lawn after the races on Friday and pick yourself up a copy of the DVD.

The weather was perfect on both Friday and Saturday: sunny and reaching 73F before the last heats of the day.  That’s the sort of weather that is supposed to produce record breaking races, and the teams did not disappoint.  The 1988 record that spat in the face of so many good teams finally fell and was beaten four times in two days.   In the end PiKA kept their win streak alive with a margin of victory of only 0.15 seconds over SDC and a new record 1.85 seconds better than any raceday before.  Just to underline things, SDC broke the women’s record pushing the bar further below the previously elusive 2:30 mark to 2:28.84.

Buggy Book 2008

Comments in the forum

Major history data upgrade

Posted on | by Sam Swift

Just in time for our first raceday, the Buggy Alumni Association’s database of buggy history has been seriously upgraded over the lat couple of weeks.  Major accomplishments include:

  • The entire backlog of history contributions has now been processed and added to the database.  Thanks so much for your contributions so far, and sorry that it took us so long to add them into the system.
  • Additional data from past buggy books, the History of Buggy presentation, and old Tartan records has been added such that we now have full records of times and places going back through the 80’s and times and places for the top 5 or 6 going back through the 60’s
  • Having more complete data allowed us to add more data to the organization pages.  You’ll now see a summary of the last 20 years of places and times for each organization
  • Similar improvements to the Person and Buggy pages reflect more of their individual histories

So check it all out in the History section

Having this much more data in the system opens the doors for you to help us find errors and fill in holes in the data.   To streamline things a bit more, we’ve added standardized forms for Race, Organization, and Buggy data.  Check those out on the Contribute Data page

Huge thanks to Scott Ziolko for doing the hard dirty work with all of the data for this update.  We never would have been able to work through the backlog without him.

22 hours left. Bid Now!

Posted on | by Sam Swift | 4 Comments on 22 hours left. Bid Now!

It’s less than 24 hours until the first ever lead truck auction will close.  Don’t miss your chance to get right up in the action this raceday.

Detailed Auction Info |   Live Auction –> Bid Now

Anyone (Alumni, current buggy folks, other students, anyone else) can get in on the action, and there are still some heat without bidders meaning you can take a wild ride for only $10.  Show support for your team by bidding on their heats!  Don’t wait until the last minute to enter your bids, there is no system for extending the deadline if there is a flurry of last minute action.  Enter max bids to make sure you don’t miss out.

Here are the current (11:45 pm)  high bids: Continue reading →

Lead Truck Auction 2009

Posted on | by Sam Swift

If you haven’t already heard, the Buggy Alumni Association will be auctioning off the chance to ride in the lead truck on raceday for each and every heat. What was previously only the territory of Head Judges and cameramen can now be yours.  In exchange for a charitable contribution to the Buggy Alumni Association, you can see the entire heat of your choice first hand.

The details of the auction go like this:

  • General
    • All heats will be auctioned simultaneously
    • The bidding will start at 9am EDT Friday April 10th
    • Bidding will end at 10pm EDT Monday April 13th
    • Each heat will have a $10 minimum bid
    • The minimum bidding increment is $1
    • You may specify a maximum amount you wish to bid for any heat.  The site will automatically increase your bid in $2 increments as needed until your maximum is exceeded by someone else.
  • Prelim Heat specifics
    • If any person wins the auctions for more than one heat, they will have the option of retracting their winning bids for all but the highest priced heat.  If they decide to withdraw their winning bid for one of the lower priced heats, the 2nd highest bidder will become the winner.
  • Finals Heat specifics
    • Because the specifics of the finals heats are unknown, bidders will be bidding for the right to have first pick of the finals heats.  Runners up will have 2nd, 3rd pick, etc.
    • There will be only two things to bid on for finals: Men’s Finals and Women’s Finals
    • The top 5 bidders for the Men’s Finals will have the opportunity to select a heat in order of their bids
    • The top 3 bidders for the Women’s Finals will have the opportunity to select a heat in order of their bids

Finer details, rules, and on Friday bids all at
http://cmubuggy.org/Auction

Suggestions, discussion, requests for clarification in the forum

We are, of course extremely thankful to sweepstakes for giving us the opportunity to use a spot in the lead truck to create this opportunity and to raise some money so that the Buggy Alumni Association can pursue its mission to support buggy.