Greetings Buggy community!

I hope this message finds you happy and safe. In light of communication from the university regarding Carnival plans, we wanted to update you all with what’s been happening this year. We had hoped to write about the resumption of rolls since the fall semester has started but unfortunately I can’t say that is true yet.

As the university email states, alumni events for Carnival are currently being planned all virtually. At this time, students are still patiently waiting for the verdict on their proposed activities. We have several exciting events in the works and hope to share more soon, but for now, here’s our updates:

• CUC Buggy Centennial Display: The artwork and design for the Centennial memorial display is being finalized and installation is planned in time for Carnival this year. We’re hoping to offer some kind of virtual unveiling event, so stay tuned!
• Season 2 of Chute the Sh!t Podcast with Will Weiner: Will and Rachael have been hard at work coordinating the plan for another podcast season to follow up on last year. They’re still accepting suggestions for people to host, so feel free to drop a comment or reply if you have any ideas!
• Buggy All-Stars returns: The Advanced Game Design class has agreed to continue development on the Buggy All-Stars game released last year. We can’t wait to see what new features they come up with next!
• Alternate Design Competition: We’re working hard with the students to plan an alternate version of Design Competition for Carnival this year that can integrate remote students as well as virtual judges and potentially spectators. No new buggies have been permitted to be built this year so it is not likely to resemble our traditional Design Competition, but there is pretty good agreement that we want some flavor of replacement.
• Among Us alumni social events: We’ve had a blast coordinating and playing Among Us with you all and definitely plan to continue that! Feel free to suggest other kinds of open social events we can host throughout the year.
• Buggy 101 themed content: If the students are approved for in-person activities, we have a plan and some content ready to go to try and help drive student engagement. Unfortunately, we won’t have approval at least until 2/15, as the COVID rules committee won’t consider the students’ revisions until in-person activities are allowed to resume.
• Endowed Fund progress: The Endowed Fund committee bylaws have been finalized and await administrative approval. Our first round of proposals and funding is very likely to go out in 2021, we just aren’t sure whether it will be in time for the spring at this point. Of course, the fund has been accruing yields for nearly a year at this point, which all are ready for disbursal — more on that when we give our financial update later on.
• Buggy Build Book: Notable recent alumni Connor Hayes and Diya Nuxoll have been hard at work on an open-source build book. Although it’s not quite ready to go public yet, we are hoping revisions will be complete before Carnival and are very excited at what will likely be the definitive public resource for building a buggy.

We’ll send out some updates once we hear more in the form of an email newsletter to our distribution list. If you’d like to be added or have any questions, we can be reached by email (admin@cmubuggy.org) as well as through Facebook/Twitter/Instagram or join us on our Discord chat server!

Hi everyone, and especially new students!

With new students arriving on campus and recruitment happening virtually this year, we thought we’d put together a list of teams and contact info for people to reference. This is also the first post in “Buggy 101”, our upcoming content series focused on introductory material to support the Buggy community.

Below is a list of active sweepstakes organizations, their chairs’ contact info, and a team website if they have one. Every team has their own unique character so be sure to shop around! It would be best to email contact, but if you like you can comment on this post. If you have any general questions, feel free to email buggy@andrew.cmu.edu .

Apex
Contact: cmu.apex@gmail.com

The Atlas Project
Contact: atlasbuggy@gmail.com
Website: https://sites.google.com/view/atlasbuggy

CIA Buggy
Contact: cia@andrew.cmu.edu
Website: ciabuggy.org

Delta Gamma
Contact: skbattag@andrew.cmu.edu

Fringe
Contact: fringe.execboard@gmail.com
Website: https://fringe.org/

Kappa Kappa Gamma + Kappa Sigma
Contact: jrushkof@andrew.cmu.edu

Phi Delta Theta
Contact: jcassady@andrew.cmu.edu

Pi Kappa Alpha
Contact: aosilver@andrew.cmu.edu

Robobuggy
Contact: djohnsto@andrew.cmu.edu
Website: https://roboticsclub.org/projects/robobuggy/

Sigma Alpha Epsilon
Contact: scbowman@andrew.cmu.edu

SigEp Racing
Contact: lazarandjelic16@gmail.com
Website: https://www.sigep.fun/campus.html

Sigma Nu
Contact: mvanbusk@andrew.cmu.edu

Spirit Buggy
Contact: thomasa1@andrew.cmu.edu
Website: https://www.spiritracingsystems.com/

Student Dormitory Council
Contact: join@sdcbuggy.org

As students move back on campus in the fall, we thought it’d be a great time to highlight the group that will be leading the effort this year. The Raceday 2021 Sweepstakes Committee has been working hard to prep for the fall so look out for updates of what this group is up to!

Hi all,

This is the third and final follow-up update from the Raceday 2020 Town Hall. If you weren’t able to make it to the Town Hall, you can take a listen here. New updates are in Bold.

1. Membership and benefits — Complete (3/31)
   
2. Consolation print: Essentially complete. If you requested shipping and have completed payment, your poster should be shipped. If you wanted to take advantage in-person pickup at the bottom of Hill One (starting line), Ben will be there with posters at the following time:
   
   Sunday August 16th 2-4pm
   Email ben.matzke@cmubuggy.org if this time does not work for you.
   
3. Budget — Complete. We have just received our latest financial update which covers our account through the end of June. With your unprecedented support in the last year-to-date, we have raised $15,462 directly, and $1,912 dollars in university matching. To give a sense of scope, this is about twice the amount we would spend on Raceday and about what we were expecting to contribute to Buggy100, which will of course roll over into the next Raceday. Although we do receive some support from employer matching, this is likely underutilized. Don’t forget to ask your employer if they are willing to match your contributions!
   
4. Homecoming Vision — Complete. Homecoming has been confirmed for the weekend of October 17th. We’re actively collaborating with CMU staff to bring Buggy events to the programming and exploring available time slots and formats but remaining flexible given the current environment. Of course now that we’ve transitioned to Fall programming and content, we’ll keep you up to date in future posts on new event offerings!
   
5. New content including livestream — Complete (4/30)
   
6. Elections — Complete. Please refer to our previous post about election results for more information.
   
7. Gifts for students — Complete! Thanks to Diya for helping us distribute the senior gifts. We also want to welcome those seniors who took advantage of our free membership offer to the BAA!

Hi Buggy Alumni,

Joanne lives on in all of us, and it’s up to us to make the positive impact in the world that she would want to make. Her kindness and spirit continue to radiate outwards and our hope is that we can direct this love to people who are fighting a battle similar to hers.

Much love!

Hi all, here are your new officers for the 2020-2022 term!

Vice President
Willy Clark

Graphics
Katelyn Smith

The remaining officers were all re-elected to their positions and we’re overjoyed to have Treasurer Bryan Arsham, Secretary Rachel Schmitt, and Broadcast Officer Will Weiner returning for second terms.

Thanks everyone for voting and participating in the election process! I will be in contact to get our new officers on board as quickly as possible and look forward to building an amazing buggy experience next year.

Greetings BAA members,

The time has finally arrived to vote on our officers for the 2020-2021 term. Thank you for your patience during the nomination process. All officer terms are for two years with potential for one re-election to the same position for a second term. Each position requires at least 20 votes or votes of confidence. Additionally, each position will have a write in option. We have 1 contested race and 4 no-contest races on the ballot:

Contested Races:
Vice President (Willy Clark, Dave Singh)

Uncontested Races:
Treasurer (Bryan Arsham)
Secretary (Rachael Schmitt)
Broadcast (Will Weiner)
Graphics (Katelyn Smith)

To cast your vote, click below!

We also are excited to share that Jeremy Tuttle, outgoing Vice President, will be staying on as an officer in a new position entitled Quartermaster. More details on the responsibilities of the Quartermaster will come as we revisit our bylaws this summer, but suffice it to say Jeremy will be continuing in most of his previous responsibilities.