With only 16 days until Raceday 2017, spring has officially appeared to have sprung in the ‘Burgh giving us warm but often rainy weather. Saturday rolls were cancelled due to excessive precipitation, but Sunday was upper 30’s and sunny. The cooler temperature resulted in slower roll times all around, but teams were still taking practice seriously. While we were missing several Greek teams due to Greek Sing, 6 human teams and 2 robotic buggies were out and rolling this weekend. 

In anticipation of April Fools’ Day one of our more dedicated reporters prepared a number of possible report openings and post titles. Despite not rolling on the first, they were too good to share:

• Rolls consisted of drivers pushing the follow car down Frew street where unsuspecting flaggers were forced to catch them and send them back up Schenley drive.
• Flush with success from greek sing a triumphant AEPi returned to buggy claiming to be the only fraternity capable of winning the triple crown. Kamikazi was caped and ready to roll.  
• A belligerent Sam Swift appeared at this roll with Blackjack demanding to be let onto the course insisting that the BAA was a legitimate team and this was always why he made the organization.
• SDC PAINTED A BUGGY IN 2 COLORS!!!!
• PIKA PAINTED A BUGGY SOMETHING OTHER THAN BLACK!?!?
• FRINGE BUGGY WITHOUT A ‘B’ NAME?
• AEPi NEW BUGGY?

Back to more serious things:
The ‘trench’ in the chute continues to dramatically slow buggies down as it tosses the lighter vehicles and drivers, since this Quick Crete conduit cover spans the entire roadway it is totally unavoidable. While some of the heavier buggies seem unaffected, it’s sure to be a good test if you have all your hatches in place. Make sure your drivers are wearing their mouth guards -this one will jump right up at you.

Buggy alumni were out in droves this weekend trying to get not one, not two, but three timing systems working. Ben M. teamed up with Lou C. to get the laser-based system created by Mark Estes functional. They continued to run into some issues getting all the transmitters to talk to each other, but are hopeful to have the system up and running in time for Raceday. Ben Brown was out getting his speed trap tested, but didn’t have much luck with his system. Finally, Shafeeq S. was manning his battle-tested photo-based system. We have data from Shafeeq, which will be posted on Wednesday. 

In Attendance 

Observations (Sunday Gallery) Continue reading →

Spring has sprung! Since hanging up the stop flags and climbing harnesses in November for the long winter, we’ve had only one occasion to roll thanks to a lack of attendance, freezing temperatures, and various forms of uncooperative weather. We went from having to cancel rolls for sub-freezing temperatures to waking up Saturday and Sunday morning to sixty five degree weather, before dawn. Leave the coats at home, let’s roll some buggies!

The Safety Chair politely reminded the teams that starting their pass testing earlier rather than later was a good idea. Consequently, Sunday’s rolls could have made for excellent day time TV: You get a pass test, and YOU get a pass test! EVERYONE ATTEMPTS A PASS TEST! There were pass-tests all day today cumulating in 7 successful passes.

Buggy alumni were out timing this weekend trying to grab some empirical data for the imminent heat-selection. We were tweeting about the efforts, but some data is more impenetrable than others. Take care not to disturb the trip-wires too much during rolls, this data collection is for your benefit.

In Attendance 

Observations (Saturday Gallery | Sunday Gallery) Continue reading →

Rolls were canceled late Friday night with an unfortunate message regarding Sweepstakes leadership health. Sunday morning got underway still lacking Sweepstakes Chair Enosh, who has a bad case of Pokérus brought on by the the recent update to Pokémon (Here is Enosh at the Dallas Regional).

It’s looking warm for the start of Spring Rolls this semester. It was a brisk 40 degree low as everyone climbed out of bed for the first time since the winter hibernation. T-shirts were seen on many pushers while those with more stationary jobs were still forced to bundle up. Temps climbed to 50 degrees with the rising sun.

While it didn’t rain overnight the few orgs in attendance were treated to a sopping wet road surface. Speculation abounds about the cause; high pressure fronts, temperature differentials, sabotage by the shadow government, regardless rolls were delayed until 7:10 to give the streets some time to dry out.

In Attendance

Observations (Sunday Gallery)
Continue reading →

Rolls this week were on the chilly side, topping out just above freezing both Saturday and Sunday. Saturday saw the bare minimum for quorum, which allowed Robobuggy to get in a couple extra rolls. The start of the weekend was more or less uneventful with some buggies getting up to 7 rolls. Very few alums were out and about and the most interesting thing of the day was a flock Canadian Geese that took over Flagstaff.

Sunday, continuing in its grand tradition, was MiniRaceday. Every participating org was out and rolling, save PhiDelt who is rumored to be focusing on their new build this semester. Teams were putting in a full effort to win amazing and wonderful prizes that have yet to be announced. Other than speeding buggies, Sunday was also fairly uneventful except for SigNu’s first roll. A stop flag was accidentally thrown at the Chute and Krait came to a full spinning stop. The driver was fine and was allowed to finish the loop.

Since everyone was doing their absolute best, we’ll just leave you with the official results from Sweepstakes and alumni-taken times for the weekend.

In Attendance 

Observations (Saturday Gallery | Sunday Gallery )

MiniRaceday Winners:
1) SDC
2) CIA
3) Fringe

The top three teams are not too surprising considering the last few years of buggies. It is interesting that Spirit and PiKA were among the top 5 but not top 3. PiKA seemed to be lagging a bit on the back hills and the cold may have been sapping Spirit’s speed. Word is that SDC and CIA were heating wheels, which likely provided their edge.

Our fearless and well-insulated alumni were out on both Saturday and Sunday taking timing data using similar methods from last Spring.

Saturday Times

Sunday Times

The discrepancies between the fastest teams (Fringe, SDC, PiKA, Spirit, CIA) down the Freeroll seem to rather small, and can likely be leveled out by impressive Hill 1’s. However, PiKA and Spirit are losing significant speed through the Chute, which ultimately affects rollouts and the backhill times. The SDC and CIA drivers seem to have found their sweet spots when it comes to navigating the Chute and are bleeding off minimal speed. Fringe sits strongly in the middle of the leading pack, with speed Freerolls and solid Chute lines, but just can’t seem to edge out CIA and SDC.

Altogether it was a great weekend for rolls. This coming weekend will be the last possible day of rolls before it’s time for the buggies to go into hibernation in their cozy garages. Come out this weekend to get your last buggy fix before winter settles in.

—
Rolls Report Contributors:
Ben M.
Natalie M.
Shafeeq S.

This weekend we had both the shortest and the longest days of rolls for the year. Buggies were rolling Saturday by 7:45am with the sun and buggies ceased rolling at 8:45am, as per Saturday tradition. In conflict with the rising sun, the temperature stagnated at a character building 37*F. There was a slight delay as the collective group tried to figure out if EMS was actually on the scene.  After EMS was confirmed, the morning got off to a panicked start. After Robobuggy pushed off, a Fringe car set off against traffic to deliver their flaggers and coffee. The safety chair immediately gave chase, but was unable to stop the determined Fringe motorist. The vehicle and Transistor crossed paths in the Chute, but by an act of the Buggy Gods, no contact was made. For safety reasons, we encourage all orgs to never drive vehicles against the flow of buggy traffic.

Hooray daylight savings time! Sunday Rolls started at 6:45 give or take a few minutes for radio club safety net members to get into position. Three vehicles remained on the back hills as the towing company that Sweepstakes uses was too busy to get down to rolls this morning.
Safety chair was performing spot-safety checks all morning and reminding teams to be especially careful as the accelerated pace of rolls can lead to small oversights that can cause accidents.  Although the pace was indeed fast, it was controlled (thanks to an on-top-of-it Sweepstakes). At least 3 teams completed 8 rolls.

It appeared that the Alumni Speed trap was in operation Sunday morning. We await the data from our gracious alumni on who is rolling fastest this early in the season.

In Attendance 

Observations (Saturday Gallery | Sunday Gallery )

• • RoboBuggy – Robobuggy joined the roll order Sunday morning rolling as the first roll and again at the top of the roll order. Hopefully the extra practice is useful to them. Their ability to iterate on their programs and gain data is somewhat diminished by only rolling once per morning. It will be exciting to see what Robobuggy can accomplish as this will be their third year consistently rolling.
  • CIApex –CIA continues to be unable to find a follow car, but the combined forces of CIApex create one full working org– though their full-to-bursting follow-SUV made for some good laughs over the safety net as people reported the course being clear of the “mother of all follow cars.” That said, CIA has always been an organization capable of mastering the logistical nightmare that comes with rolling more buggies than any other team.

           The benefits of having a heavier buggy were seen on the course Sunday morning. Although there are some reports of Tempest’s wheels being heated and and treated, today it was no match for one of the most ironically named buggies rolling: Orca. The whale of a buggy managed to pass Tempest during the Freeroll. Remember everyone, pass tests need to be set up ahead of time! Someone does need to talk to the driver of Icarus about their chute line which puts them right overtop of a drain cover, nearly every single time.

• • Fringe – Fringe was out with 4 buggies, Saturday and Sunday with most the drivers rolling bagless. The entire fleet is smooth, quiet, and quick around the course. Several of their buggies were already catching windows on Hill 3. On Sunday all the drivers were getting full Hill 2 push offs.
  • PiKA – On Saturday morning an attempt to coordinate a fast push up hill 1, PiKA misses their 30 second window after being ‘cleared’ to go and is forced to scratch their first roll. Despite some organizational hiccups, PiKA continues to roll quickly, smoothly and constantly. On Sunday they could be seen floating their buggy and have possibly begun the process of heating wheels and ramping up their speeds. Their only failing last race day was being Fishing Club, and also rolling too quickly for their Hill 5 to catch the pushbar. Expect a competitive PiKA come April.
  • SDC – Although enthusiastic to keep everyone on schedule, SDC’s haste to keep rolls moving quickly may have resulted in tragedy, as on the way to their first roll the mechanic carrying Avarice slipped on some wet grass and dropped the fully loaded buggy. The buggy was cleared to roll but an unfortunate chute line put the driver right into the hay bales by the gazebo. She was safely extracted but did not continue to roll for the rest of the day. Avarice returned on Sunday without incident. SDC was observed holding Malice back and floating the buggy before their rolls.
  • SigEp – Kraken was working its way around the course Saturday, but was back to hibernating on Sunday. The team is progressing steadily, although they are a shadow of their once speedy selves. Hopefully as the semester continues they will find some of their historic speed. 
  • SigNu –The big news this week was SigNu’s attendance at rolls! The fraternity showed up in force with veteran driver Raisa Chowdhury to start off the day on Saturday. After an inauspicious arrival to the starting line without a rear hatch and some confusion between the organization and sweepstakes as to where a buggy must finish a roll, they put in 3 rolls on Saturday and are off to a strong start.
    Their members are interested in rekindling their old buggy legacy and want to drum up enthusiasm in their fraternity for our uniquely CMU sport. The goals for this year are to be a competitive team and progress to finals on race day. If they can impress their alumni, the organization has been promised them the use of some quality wheels and a buggy shell lighter than that of their current offering “Bungaris Krait”. It’s great to see SigNu out again on a field where fraternity representation is shrinking rapidly. It would have been even better to seem them out Sunday morning where the early start allowed us to complete 8 cycles of the roll order and could have fully qualified a driver for the fall.
  • Spirit – Saturday was mostly uneventful for Spirit. They could be seen bagging some of their buggies, suggesting some new drivers appearing on the course. Maybe a build in the works for them? Unfortunately on Sunday Spirit had the only major incident when Kingpin’s driver took their chute turn too wide and hit the bales, shattering the rear axle of the buggy and causing it to slide along the ground. The driver was extracted safely and could be heard expressing concern about the condition of the buggy. Kingpin scratched for the rest of the day. But otherwise Spirit continues to pick up the characteristic speed we’ve come to expect from them.

—
Rolls Report Contributors:
Ethan G.
Natalie M.

After a mid-semester break siesta, buggies were back and rolling this past Saturday. Sunday was preemptively canceled due to it being Halloween weekend. Sweepstakes figured the teams would be too exhausted from a late night of bobbing for apples and pumpkin carving. Yup, definitely that. It was also Scottie Saturday/Homecoming weekend, so the BAA had a table full of coffee and donuts. Of course, that was mostly devoured by the students. A veritable horde of recent SDC alums descended upon the course as well to cheer on the current members. It’s always great to see a strong showing of buggy alumni.

A few members of the BAA were testing out the new collaborative timing app, but there weren’t quite enough people to get it functional. The app relies on multiple users indicating when a buggy passes certain points on the course. Hopefully next week we’ll have enough people working with it for it to be operative. The more standard Speed Trap didn’t make it to rolls even though the teams were ready with reflective tape on their buggies in an attempt to increase accuracy. It should also be out and functional next weekend.

A missing radio club member caused rolls to start on the later side of the morning (~7:50am). When the backup arrived, buggies started rolling. It was a fairly smooth day that ended a bit earlier than usual. Interestingly, a hay bale was missing from the light post prior to the turn. Fortunately this wasn’t an issue.

In Attendance

Observations (Saturday Gallery)
Continue reading →

It was a dry weekend that made for some excellent rolls this past weekend. Saturday was a bit chilly, but Sunday was absolutely beautiful. 7 teams made it out to at least one day of rolls with SAE and SigNu still trying to get through capes. Sweepstakes has been doing an excellent job keeping the teams organized at the top of the hill and Sunday they managed to get most teams 6 rolls. In an effort to create a more friendly and cooperative environment, Sweepstakes held a “can you name all the chairmen” challenge at last Chairmen’s meeting. Apex and SDC tied and shared a piñata filled with candy after rolls.

We are happy to report that it was a relatively uneventful weekend of rolls. Only SDC had any issues and those turned out to be relatively minor (more details below).

This week some members of the BAA were beta testing a new app that is effectively a collaborative effort to acquire timing data. Although the timing won’t be exact, it has great potential for general trends and split times. We’ll have updates on that in the future. Thanks to the efforts of one of our more dedicated alums, we should have more detailed timing data for you later on this week.

In Attendance 

Observations (Saturday Gallery | Sunday Gallery) Continue reading →

Saturday was again too soggy for Rolls, and practice was again called off early by Sweepstakes. Sunday, although a bit chilly, was sunny, dry, and finally buggies were making their way around the course. We had 7 of the 9 teams out (SigNu and PhiDelt still need capes), and it was a relatively smooth first day of Rolls. The local fauna seem to have forgotten about the morning traditions on Flagstaff and a few deer were meandering around the Freeroll before eventually scampering off. More pressing, there were no barricaders by the Scaife parking lot with the explanation being that the team didn’t show up for Rolls and was just going to eat the fine. There was also no outer barricade at Panther, just a small sign requesting motorists not run over the buggies. The barricaders themselves took a while to find their groove when it came to yelling at cyclists, leading to several bikes on the course throughout Rolls.

Flaggers seemed to either be quite out of practice getting to the hills on time or just too new to know what they should be doing and when. Getting some of the flaggers to their positions required driving them down the Freeroll after buggies had started rolling (resulting in only a brief on-hold period at the beginning of rolls). The PiKA flaggers had even greater issues and had to ask an alum in the Chute where they were supposed to go (no, that alum was not former PiKA). The boys then proceeded to fight American Gladiator style with the flags in the Chute turn and then climbed on the statue in front of Phipps before eventually finding their way to flagging positions.

Sweepstakes had some additional issues at top of the hill thanks to a water main break to Park Mansions which has forced them to repave their main driveway. Because of the closure, residents had to use the cobblestone road (sometimes called Hill 6) and be let through the barricade to leave via Schenley. Without a barricader to direct traffic, many annoyed motorists found themselves waiting for a an organization or two before someone found their way to open the barricade for them. The main driveway has been under repairs for the last several weeks and has no known completion date at this point.

In Attendance

Observations (Sunday Gallery) Continue reading →

Students and alumni alike were champing at the bit for some sweet, sweet buggy action this weekend. Unfortunately, rolls were called off mid-afternoon on Friday due to ominous weather predictions. Fortunately, for those in Pittsburgh, we were still able to get our buggy fix from Tom Wood’s always wonderful History of Buggy presentation as part of parents’ weekend.

Our intrepid teams were out and ready to roll Sunday morning. The BAA was there is full support (and maybe showing off to parents) with coffee and donuts at the top of Hill 1. But alas, wet roads meant buggies couldn’t roll. Practice was called before anyone made it around the course. This year’s Sweepstakes committee really have their eye on  keeping everyone safe, and we are in full support of that.

Hopefully we’ll be back next week with something a little more exciting than just “Rolls were canceled.”

—
Rolls Report Contributors
Ben M.

This week’s report is a different format and trimmed down compared to previous weeks. If you want to get a complete lowdown on buggy happenings, be sure to join up and become a member to get this year’s Raceday Preview. The Preview will be coming out in the next few days and will be full of great info and some fun articles. We’ll give you the scoop on who to look out for this season.

Thanks to inclement weather and the new arrangement for the trucks, a lot was happening this weekend. The new truck order was necessary to accommodate Midway taking place on the CFA lawn. Several weeks of poor weather and single-day weekends caused many teams to scramble to get in those final few rolls and pass tests. Amazingly, every team got at least one of their buggies fully qualified for Raceday. Perhaps even more amazingly, every new buggy from this semester also squeaked in enough rolls to qualify. All-in-all we have 11 organizations and 27 buggies ready to in the (cross your fingers) sunny and warm weather next weekend.

Several of our alumni were out and taking speed data this past Sunday. Three different timing mechanisms were used: a camera system, a stopwatch system, and the laser speed trap. Data were collected at the top of the Freeroll between the crosswalk and Westinghouse pond (note, baseline speed was not taken for this position so speeds are relative, not absolute), just after the monument in the Freeroll, and halfway between Scaife and the bicycle racks on Hill 3. The percentages are relative to the fastest roll. To note, any Hill 2 pushoff <90% is likely a women’s team.

Qualified

Observations (Saturday Gallery | Sunday Gallery) Continue reading →