Welcome back to buggy!

Posted on | by Sam Swift

Sweepstakes has been on their game since they were elected last spring, the chairmen have met, the drivers have had their meeting, the chores have been assigned, and I am way behind on keeping you up to date.  To make up some time, I’m going to revisit a couple of posts from last fall.  First a summary of who we’ve got on the course this year (compare to the 2009 edition), and then some benchmarks from previous semesters

Orgs in and orgs out

Overall, it looks like raceday 2011 is likely to be down a few teams from 2010, but here’s what we know kicking things off (from bad news to better news)

  • Sigma Nu (2 teams in ’10) – Perhaps the biggest loss to the current roster of buggy teams, but also the least finalized decision.  SN is still on campus and they still have nice shiny buggies and fast wheels waiting in their garage, but they seem to be short on energy and manpower.  Although their impact as a competitor has been slipping the last few years, they were always one of the reliable, year-round, core organizations.  Perhaps last year’s pair of DQs on their only two teams was the straw that broke the camel’s back or maybe they’re just storming out the door so we’ll realize how much we miss them and beg them back.  Do your begging in the official “Hey SigNu” thread in the forum.
  • PhiKap (2 teams in ’10) – It was looking like PhiKap’s presence in buggy might have been on the up-swing as they ramped up to 3 buggies and told us in the fall that their goal was to make top 10.  They came really close with an 11th place finish, but it looks like they won’t have a chance to try again.  Semi-official word around campus is that PhiKap will not be around any longer due to some ill-advised college guy type antics.  Speculation and rumor mongering is mixed in with the SN thread starting here.
  • ZBT-KKG (2 teams in ’10) – The co-ed greek partnership seems to be ending after a year as ZBT is no longer active and KKG isn’t up to going it alone for the time being.  I’m not too clear on what ZBT’s status is on campus. Continue reading →

Buggy documentary screening – Wed 10am

Posted on | by Sam Swift | 8 Comments on Buggy documentary screening – Wed 10am

1 year for 2 minutesIf you’re reading cmubuggy.org and you’ll be on campus on wednesday, you shouldn’t miss the world premier of “1 year for 2 minutes,” a student filmed and produced documentary about buggy.

The film is the result of a year-long SURG-funded effort by David Kinskey-Lebeda and Erin Gantz that explores the addictive craziness that is buggy with interviews and buggy footage.  The main players on screen are largely CIA folks, but the questions they ask and answer are definitely relevant to the entire buggy world.  We, the BAA committee were even interviewed at length, and haven’t seen how that turned out yet.  Should be interesting.

When and Where

PREMIERING
Wed, May 5th at 10am
UC McConomy Auditorium

EXTENDED Screening
Sat, May 8th at 8pm
Breed Hall (Margaret Morrison 103)

Facebook event

http://www.facebook.com/#!/event.php?eid=121978317814884

Trailer Continue reading →

24 hours left in Lead Truck Auction, Bid now!

Posted on | by Sam Swift | 2 Comments on 24 hours left in Lead Truck Auction, Bid now!

Action in this year’s Lead Truck auction has been lively through the first 61 hours, but like they say on the back hills, we need to finish strong. The currently winning bidders have pledged $899 which is awesome, but we’ve got a ways to go to make the most of our $2,000 matching gift.  Don’t let us leave money on the table that could go towards making buggy more fun and exciting for alumni and current students.

http://www.cmubuggy.org/auction

There are still plenty of affordable heats, and some high profile heats that aren’t as high yet as they were last year.  Remember, every dollar you put it in is worth $2 to the BAA!  A summary of the current winning bids for your convenience:

Women’s Prelims

  • $21 : Fringe C, KKG-ZBT A, SDC D
  • $11 : SDC B, Spirit B, CIA B
  • $25 : SN A, PiKA B, SigEp B
  • $31 : Fringe A, SDC C, CIA A
  • $10 : Spirit A, SAE A, AEPi A
  • $30 : PiKA A, Beta A, Fringe B
  • $11 : SDC A, SigEp A, Spirit C
 Women’s Finals

  • $71 – first pick
  • $70 – second pick
  • $25 – third pick
Men’s Prelims

  • $21 : SAE A, PiKA D, PhiKap C
  • $21 : Fringe C, CIA C
  • $21 : Spirit B, KKG-ZBT A, AEPi C
  • $16 : SDC B, PiKA C, CIA D
  • $36 : SN A, Spirit C, PhiKap B
  • $10 : SigEp A, SDC D
  • $35 : Fringe B, CIA A, AEPi B
  • $31 : PiKA B, SigEp B, Beta A
  • $22 : Spirit A, CIA B, Fringe D
  • $32 : PiKA A, SDC C, Pioneers A
  • $35 : Fringe A, AEPi A, SN B
  • $31 : SDC A, SigEp C, PhiKap A
 Men’s Finals

  • $66 – first pick
  • $65 – second pick
  • $55 – third pick
  • $50 – fourth pick
  • $49 – fifth pick

Hey SDC, Spirit, and SigEp alumni, you’re not going to let your A team heats go for less than $15 are you?  That’s right, I’m calling you out, support your teams, they’re going to think you don’t care about them!

Update: There was interest in lead truck rides during the exhibition heats (especially the PiKA – Beta – SN showdown), so we have added those to the auction.  Click here to see the current bidding.

Heats are selected; Start bidding now in the auction

Posted on | by Sam Swift | 11 Comments on Heats are selected; Start bidding now in the auction


55 teams will contest this year’s men’s and women’s races, up 5 from last year.  That’s what we like to see.  Mission #3 of the buggy alumni association coming up spades.  Even though we’re up 5 teams, there will be only 19 heats which is 6 fewer than last year.  The trick is that since hill 1 was repaved this summer, buggy can once again use all three lanes and set up some action-packed heats.

Now that the heats are settled and it is 9am Friday morning, the auction is open for bids!  Head right on over to

http://cmubuggy.org/auction

and get in on the action.  Remember …

and the heats are:

Update: There were  few last minute changes to the heats which are now marked in orange …

  • Phikap will not be entering a Men’s C
  • CIA C moved from lane 2 to lane 3 in Men’s heat 2
  • CIA A moved from heat 7 to heat 6

Continue reading →

DTD down for the year, but not out

Posted on | by Sam Swift | 5 Comments on DTD down for the year, but not out

Sweepstakes has officially decided, and DTD has confirmed, that 2010 is not going to be the year they break back onto the raceday scene.  DTD made its first appearance on the buggy course in recent history in October and got off to a good start.  They had their share of incidents, but in the fall that’s just part of being new.  Problem was that the incidents kept piling up regularly into the spring and it didn’t seem like they had a reasonable chance of making it around the course on raceday.

One of the BAA’s stated goals is to encourage greater participation in the sport, so we’re interested in their experience and how we can help teams like them in the future.  We got in contact with DTD’s co-buggy-chair, Ian McIntyre, and asked a few questions: Continue reading →

Golf, water bottles, and t-shirts

Posted on | by Sam Swift | 2 Comments on Golf, water bottles, and t-shirts

It’s that time of year when everyone has things to announce, and thanks to all yinz, cmubuggy.org is one of the best places to do it. Sweepstakes and Alumni Relations both have our back when we’re trying to get things done, so we’re happy to spread the good word from them:

Spring Carnival Alumni Golf Outing

Murrysville Golf Murrysville Golf Club, Murrysville, PA
Sunday, April 18

Join alumni for the Spring Carnival Alumni Golf Outing.  Breakfast, a snack at the turn, cart, 18 holes of golf and a closing lunch are included.  Shuttle service is available and will leave from the University Center Circle at 8 am.  Registration on-site and breakfast begin at 8:30 am.  Registration Required/Event Fee: $95 & due upon registration.

To register, please visit:
http://www.cmu.edu/alumni/involved/events/carnival/registration-golf/index.html

Pre-order Sweepstakes Merchandise

Sweepstakes has tshirts, buggy books, and those stainless steel water bottles that are all the rage.

Sweepstakes Tshirt 2010Sweepstakes water bottle 2010The tshirt design and waterbottle designs are at left, click for a bigger version.   T-shirts and water bottles are going for $10 each.  Buy any two items for $18.  That’s a $2 discount!  Tshirts come in sides Youth Medium, Youth Large, and then Adult Small through Adult 2XL.

Buggy books are $5 to everyone other than active participants.  The cover of the buggy book is a secret until raceday to build that suspenseful atmosphere.  Don’t count on getting the buggy book PDF on cmubuggy for free, we’ll wait a year to post it so that we don’t undercut the way buggy book printing gets paid for.

Pre-order now to avoid the hustle and bustle on raceday by e-mailing sweepstakes chair Jess Thurston: jessicathurston532@gmail.com.  Pickup would ideally be at design comp, but raceday pickups are possible, arrange by e-mail.

Buggy books 1965-2009 now online

Posted on | by Sam Swift | 4 Comments on Buggy books 1965-2009 now online

Buggy books are one of our best sources for buggy history.  Just like old yearbooks, they’re just fun to browse through to see how much things have changed and how much they’ve stayed the same.  Teams no longer proudly describe their build process in detail as was common into the mid 70’s.  Check out this description offered by ATO in 1968:

The “Golden Goose’s” design is based on the aerodynamic features of a teardrop and is constructed of a plywood and steel frame with a molded fiberglass shell.  In 1959 air scoops were added to improve the aerodynamic qualities of the buggy … Despite good times last year, both buggies were disqualified because of failure to pass a brake test.  This year the ATO’s will add improved brake systems.”

and by Beta in the same year: Continue reading →

Timing system test at rolls a success

Posted on | by Sam Swift | 3 Comments on Timing system test at rolls a success

Timing test
We had to wake up way earlier than alumni normally do for rolls, but it was worth it. The timing system (original post, post 2) works like a charm and we’ve got a good handle on the software now. Click on this picture of Fringe’s new (unamed) buggy crossing the line to see a sample of finish line shots. This system is going to be more accurate and reliable than the old one, but the pictures of the finishes are definitely the most entertaining part.

The background is still low-contrast and varied because the finish line currently looks like it was drawn with sidewalk chalk by a drunk toddler. Once we get a nice thick bright white finish line, these images will be really nice. It will also be later in the day and thus lighter than when most of these were taken. The quality was already getting better in the second half of our day today. These are all aesthetic concerns though, even the lowest quality images we’ve gotten so far were sufficient to quickly and precisely determine the finishing time.

Some things you might notice Continue reading →

Lead Truck Auction 2010 → 2 Jumbotrons!

Posted on | by Sam Swift | 6 Comments on Lead Truck Auction 2010 → 2 Jumbotrons!

Lead Truck

Last year marked the debut of two exciting additions to the raceday experience: the chance to ride in the lead truck and the jumbotron.  This year, we’re taking it up a notch.

The Buggy Alumni Association is pledging the first $1,000 of auction proceeds directly to Sweepstakes to help cover the cost of 2 jumbotrons at raceday this year!

Those of you that are familiar with both the lead truck auction and the jumbotron from last year are probably so excited already you won’t read the rest of this post.  For the rest of you, details are below. Continue reading →

Timing system in hand and working

Posted on | by Sam Swift | 7 Comments on Timing system in hand and working

About a month ago, we announced that Sweepstakes and the Buggy Alumni Association had teamed up to select and fund a new and improved timing system for buggy.  We are renting the system for an extended period this year so that we have time to thoroughly test it in the buggy context and make sure that it is better than the old system.

The system arrived over spring break, and yesterday evening, we learned how to assemble the hardware and operate the software.  The results were an excellent start. Both the hardware and software have a definite learning curve, but in a couple of hours we had the whole system unpacked, set up, and recording timed photo-finishes. The picture at right shows my dog Ruby edging BAA president Carsen Kline at the finish by 0.28 seconds after a 43 second race around the back yard. The quality of the images will improve in our real implementation as we learn which lens is most appropriate, and do things when it’s not getting dark out.

We are planning on doing our next test (this time with real buggy finishes) at freerolls on the weekend of March 27th and 28th. Thanks so much to everyone who has contributed financially to the Buggy Alumni Association in our first 18 months. Being able to materially improve the buggy experience for both current students and alumni is really exciting.