Rolls Report: March 26 & 27 (T minus 3 weeks)

How do you know it’s late March in Pittsburgh?  1) It was 20 degrees or less at rolls  2) 8 of the 11 orgs put up their fastest time of the semester this weekend (and the other three were the 1 buggy orgs).  The cold was killing walkie-talkie batteries, fogging windshields, and fogging my brain, but impressively the buggies were flying.

In Attendance (buggies newest to oldest, all buggies qualified with at least one driver)

Org Saturday Sunday
AEPi Robobuggy Robobuggy, Kamikaze
CIA Ascension, Frejya, Renaissance, Quasar Ascension, Renaissance, Firebird
Fringe Bonsai, Borealis, Bedlam, Blizzard Bonsai, Borealis, Blizzard, Brazen
KapSig Apache
PiKA RD2011, Nemesis, Knightfall, Zeus RD2011, Nemesis, Chimera, Knightfall
Pioneers Chaos Chaos
SAE Rubicon
SDC Bane, Avarice, Malice, Psychosis, Rage Bane, Avarice, Malice, Psychosis, Rage
SigEp Mamba, Pandora Mamba, Peregrine, Barracuda, Pandora
SigNu Skua Krait
Spirit Mapambazuko, Seraph, Fuko, Haraka Mapambazuko, Seraph, Fuko, Haraka

Observations (Saturday gallery) Continue reading

Rolls Report: March 19 & 20

All of a sudden spring break is behind us and we’re in the 4 week sprint to raceday. We stodgy alumni thought the kids were taking a bit of a gamble not scheduling rolls for either weekend of spring break, but it seems to have worked out pretty well for them. The first weekend of the break would have been entirely rained out anyway, and the skies were clear this weekend so it’s all good. Saturday was one of those super slow days with no clear culprit, but everyone shook off the rust by Sunday and put nearly twice as many buggies down the hill in the same amount of time.  We’re up to 11 rolling organizations, and 5 new buggies in the class of 2011 (plus Apache from the late fall); raceday must be near.

In Attendance (buggies newest to oldest, 2011 buggies, buggies qualified with at least one driver)

Org Saturday Sunday
AEPi Kamikaze, Zephyrus, Robobuggy Zephyrus
CIA Ascension, Frejya, Renaissance, Quasar Ascension, Frejya, Renaissance, Quasar
Fringe NBXI, Borealis, Blizzard NBXI, Borealis, Blizzard
KapSig Apache Apache
PiKA RD2011, Chimera, Knightfall RD2011, Chimera, Knightfall, Zeus
Pioneers Chaos Chaos
SAE Rubicon Rubicon
SDC Bane, Avarice, Psychosis, Rage Bane, Avarice, Malice, Psychosis, Rage
SigEp Mamba, Peregrine, Pandora Mamba, Peregrine, Pandora
SigNu Skua Skua
Spirit Fuko, Haraka Mapambazuko, Fuko, Haraka

Observations (Saturday gallery) Continue reading

Rolls Report: Feb 27

Melting snow and rain kept teams off the course on Saturday, but Sunday was exciting enough to make up for it.  Pika joined the new buggy 2011 club (with a standard tryke no less!) and Spirit entertained the chute crowd with a hat trick of spins and a rarely seen mechanical failure.  Enough intro, let’s get to the details.

In Attendance (buggies listed newest to oldest)

Org Saturday
AEPi Kamikaze, Robobuggy
CIA Ascension, Frejya, Renaissance, Firebird
Fringe Borealis, Bedlam, Blizzard
PiKA RD2011, Nemesis, Chimera, Zeus
Pioneers Chaos
SDC Bane, Avarice, Malice, Psychosis, Addiction
SigEp Barracuda, Pandora
Spirit Seraph, Fuko, Haraka
No-shows: SAE, KapSig, SN

Observations (Sunday gallery) Continue reading

Welcome Back to Buggy! Rolls Report 2/19


If you’re not in town it might have been easy to miss, but here on campus, it’s buggy season again!  Last weekend was cancelled well in advance due to generally crappy weather and an insufficient number of caped teams, but the past week was nothing but ridiculously nice caping weather, and almost everyone got their act together.  9 orgs made it out (everyone except for SAE) to kick off the semester together with two new buggies and a robot.  Sunday was called off for unsuitable weather.  The wind was freakin intense on Saturday and apparently it was going to be worse on Sunday.  “Wind?!” you old-timers say?  Well, wind=cold.

In Attendance (buggies listed newest to oldest)

Org Saturday
AEPi Robobuggy
CIA #17, Frejya, Renaissance
Fringe Borealis, Bedlam, Blizzard
KapSig Apache
PiKA Nemesis, Chimera, Knightfall
Pioneers Chaos
SDC Bane, Avarice, Malice, Psychosis, Addiction, Rage
SigEp Barracuda, Pandora
Spirit Seraph, Fuko, Haraka

Observations (Saturday gallery) Continue reading

Rolls Report: Mini-Raceday and the end of the semester

Sorry, I’m a slacker, this is way late.  Here’s the silver lining though.  This is your last rolls report until the spring so now the drought you have to endure is two days shorter!  Plus, scroll down and check it out, this report is meaty.  Good weather, a fair number of teams (include one new one!), enthusiasm, and some speed made for a top notch finale to the semester.  SDC successfully defended their mini-raceday men’s title, but Fringe took the women’s case of beer.  More details on that below.

In Attendance (buggies listed newest to oldest)

Org Saturday Sunday
AEPi Kamikaze, Zephyrus Kamikaze
CIA Freyja, Renaissance, Firebird, Quasar Freyja, Renaissance, Quasar
Fringe Borealis, Banyan, Blizzard Borealis, Bedlam, Blizzard
KapSig Apache Apache
PiKA Nemesis, Chimera, Knightfall, Zeus, Desperado Knightfall, Zeus, Desperado
Pioneers Chaos Chaos
SDC Avarice, Malice, Psychosis, Addiction, Rage Avarice, Malice, Psychosis, Addiction, Rage
SigEp Barracuda, Pandora Barracuda, Pandora
Spirit Seraph, Fuko, Haraka Seraph, Fuko, Haraka

Observations (Saturday gallery | Sunday gallery | Bonus gallery c/o AEPi) Continue reading

Rolls Report: Oct 30

The cold finally showed up for Halloween weekend with rolls temperatures around 37, and with daylight savings time still in effect we’re down to about 60 minutes on the course.  Sunday was cancelled in advance to make way for parties, so we’re still batting an impressive 9 for 10 so far this semester against inclement weather.  Only 6 orgs made it out, so an hour was enough to get through the roll order 3 times.  If I’m not mistaken, this was the first day of the year with no incidents at all, that’t not very ghoulish.

In Attendance (buggies listed newest to oldest)

Org Saturday
AEPi Zephyrus
CIA Freyja, Renaissance, Quasar
Fringe Borealis, Bedlam, Banyan, Blizzard
PiKA Nemesis, Knightfall, Zeus, Desperado
SigEp Barracuda, Pandora
SDC Avarice, Malice, Addiction, Rage

Observations (Saturday gallery) Continue reading

Rolls Report: Oct 23 & 24

Teams must have read the comment thread from last week’s news post in which alumni were wondering why there are so many incidents these days, because this weekend was very smooth and uneventful.  It may have also just been regression to the mean.  Each weekend the weather is beautiful I think, “This might be the last one of the year …” and then it is beautiful again the next weekend.  No complaints.  It is staying dark for longer and longer but the drivers are brave and have started rolling before the streetlights are off as dawn is just starting to break.

In Attendance (buggies listed newest to oldest)

Org Saturday Sunday
AEPi Kamikaze, Zephyrus Kamikaze
CIA Freyja, Renaissance, Firebird, Quasar Freyja, Renaissance, Firebird, Quasar
Fringe Bedlam, Blizzard Borealis, Bedlam, Blizzard
PiKA Nemesis, Chimera, Desperado Nemesis, Chimera, Desperado
Pioneers Chaos
SDC Avarice, Malice, Psychosis, Rage Avarice, Malice, Psychosis
SigEp Peregrine, Barracuda Peregrine
Spirit Seraph, Fuko, Haraka Seraph, Fuko, Haraka

Observations (Saturday gallery | Sunday gallery) Continue reading

Rolls Report: Oct 16

Orgs decided that there would be no rolls on Sunday because of mid-semester break, and even Saturday was a minimal crew of the most dedicated folks (or maybe the folks least skilled at planning something fun for mid-semester break).  SDC took the weekend off, and most teams had fewer buggies than normal except CIA whose 4 rolling buggies represented 25% of those on the course.  The fall weather is starting to kick in as it was about 40 degrees out there, but we’re still getting lucky on the precipitation.

In Attendance (buggies listed newest to oldest)

Org Saturday
AEPi Kamikaze, Zephyrus
CIA Freyja, Renaissance, Firebird, Quasar
Fringe Borealis, Bedlam, Blizzard
PiKA Nemesis, Brimstone
SigEp Peregrine, Barracuda
Spirit Fuko, Haraka

Observations (Saturday gallery) Continue reading

Rolls Report: Oct 9 & 10

More perfect fall weather set the scene for a solid weekend of rolls with a SDC, Spirit, SigEp, AEPi, and the citizens of Pittsburgh stepping up and giving us some things to talk about.

In Attendance (buggies listed newest to oldest)

Org Saturday Sunday
AEPi Kamikaze Kamikaze, Zephyrus
CIA Freyja, Renaissance, Firebird, Quasar Freyja, Renaissance, Firebird
Fringe Borealis, Bedlam, Banyan, Blizzard Borealis, Bedlam, Banyan, Blizzard
PiKA Nemesis, Chimera, Brimstone Nemesis, Chimera, Brimstone
Pioneers Chaos
SDC Avarice, Malice, Psychosis, Addiction, Rage Avarice, Malice, Psychosis, Addiction, Rage
SAE Rubicon
SigEp Peregrine, Barracuda, Pandora
Spirit Seraph, Fuko, Haraka Seraph, Fuko, Haraka

Observations (Saturday gallery | Sunday gallery) Continue reading

Rolls Report: Oct 2

One part fog and one part rain made for an interesting but brief weekend of rolls.  Fog is usually an issue at daybreak that then burns off as rolls proceed, but on Saturday it was backwards.  Rolls started clear and then pressed on through a thickening blanket.   Sunday’s rolls were cancelled on Saturday night in light of the oncoming rain which did materialize from 5-8am.

I wasn’t in town this weekend, so this post is an experiment in crowd-sourced reporting.  As you can see, the product is a bit on the thin side.  If you’re in town and would like to contribute in the future, get in on this thread.  Feel free to add exciting stories we missed from this week in the comments.

In Attendance (buggies listed newest to oldest)

Org Saturday
AEPi Kamikaze
CIA Freyja, Renaissance, Quasar
Fringe Borealis, Bedlam, Banyan, Blizzard
PiKA Nemesis, Chimera, Knightfall, Brimstone, Zeus
Pioneers Chaos
SDC Avarice, Malice, Addiction, Rage
SigEp Barracuda, Pandora
Spirit Seraph, Fuko, Haraka

Observations (Saturday gallery) Continue reading