This past weekend foul weather again kept us to one day (Saturday) of rolls. Perhaps the Pittsburgh weather wanted to celebrate the release of the new Thor movie. Regardless of the reason, the constant rains and cooling temperatures are unpleasant reminders that winter is coming to the ‘Burgh.

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Thanks to rain and Halloween shenanigans, teams only rolled for one hour this weekend. Saturday was designated the official evening to celebrate All Hallows’ Eve, so Sweepstakes polled the chairmen and canceled Sunday rolls due to a projected low turn out (and high hangover rate). Unfortunately around 8:30am, Pittsburgh decided it was truly fall and it started to rain. Rolls were immediately called and the course was cleaned up for the weekend.

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The parents were out in force this weekend! Thanks for everyone who came out to support the insane sport of buggy bright and early this past Saturday and Sunday. It was awesome to have an enthusiastic audience that was either knowledgeable about buggy, asking great questions or even participating; and did we see some folks pushing the back hills?

Shenanigans started before the first buggy was one its way. At 7:15 am on Saturday, bales were still being set up along the Chute. Sweepstakes put out a call for anyone with a broom to clean off the copious amounts of loose hay, after last weekend seems like our fearless leaders are doing everything in their power to reduce the number of incidents.

That said we did start rolling Robobuggy on Saturday while a buggy related vehicle was still parked down in the Chute. The buggy and follow car passed through without incident. Immediately following the first robobuggy roll, the Sweepstakes chair drove down the course and parked between the groups of flaggers to inspect and then correct the placement of the hay bale on the staircase. Unfortunately, Robo still got the all clear even with a car parked in the middle of the road. To their credit they were able to complete the roll without any incident by dodging between the monument and the Sweepstakes vehicle. Atlas was not out this weekend.

With autonomous rolls wrapped up we got started with human filled buggies.

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This past weekend of rolls was a doozy, and we don’t mean that in a “everyone got 6 rolls” sort of way. Between several crashes, a twisted ankle, and a rather angry motorist, we only got through the roll order 2.5 times. In addition, wet weather on Sunday meant that this was not a very productive weekend for the teams.

In Attendance 

Observations (Saturday Gallery) Continue reading →

Welcome back Buggy fans! It’s that time of the year again! The leaves are falling, temperatures are dropping, and students are suffering through the first round of exams. We all know what that means: time for Buggy! This past weekend our beloved tradition got started on the right wheel with clear skies and tolerable temperatures. 8 teams were out rolling their buggies tallying up 49 rolls between Saturday and Sunday, although SigNu and AEPi are expected to be joining the roll order soon.

In Attendance 

Observations (Saturday Gallery | Sunday Gallery) Continue reading →

Can you believe it, buggy fans? We are just days away from the event we’ve been waiting all year for!!! Raceday 2017 is upon us, which means that this past weekend was our annual buggy dress rehearsal, a.k.a. Truck Weekend. Due to significant rain Sunday morning, it was really more like Truck Saturday, but that didn’t stop all 9 human teams and 2 robotic buggies from getting in those final few precious rolls.

After a grueling Heat Selection meeting last night, it is now confirmed that 22 women’s teams will roll in 10 heats and 27 men’s teams will roll in 12 heats. Stay tuned for the official schedule to be posted.

As per tradition, this rolls report isn’t going to contain too much information as we prepare to send out the much anticipated Raceday Preview. This year’s preview is jam-packed with team summaries, photos, alumni interviews, and predictions amongst other awesome buggy-ness. How do you get access to this amazing document? Simple: pay your BAA dues ($10). BAA dues go a long way to helping us keep you up-to-date on the latest buggy news as well as provide critical support to the current students. Plus, you get the Raceday Preview; that alone is worth the measly $10. You can join the BAA or renew your membership here.

Without further ado, the buggies that were rolling this Saturday and some sweet, sweet timing data!

In Attendance 

Observations (Saturday Gallery)

The following data is a compilation of the laser-based system and the video-based system we have reported data from in the past. SDC, PiKA, Spirit, Fringe, and CIA are all, unsurprisingly, at the top of the pack. We’ll let you pour over the numbers though.

Remember, for a final wrap up of how the teams are looking before Raceday, pay your dues and check out the Raceday Preview!

See you on Friday for prelims!

Rolls Report Contributors:
Shafeeq
Natalie M.

Can you believe it, Buggy fans? Raceday 2017 is a mere week away! Much like our buggies, time seems to be speeding up as we approach the pinnacle of buggy-lover activities. Every org but one was out and getting in those last few rolls before Truck Weekend. Though, it seems that several teams are waiting on their duct tape orders to arrive. Ethan G (report writer and radioman extraordinaire) amassed quite the collection of hatches and various buggy bits that came loose in the chute.

If you arrived at rolls before 6:30 on Saturday, you’d have seen about 100 vehicles on the course as EMS borrowed our closed roads to do some training for their drivers. Rolls scheduled to start earlier this weekend were delayed on Saturday by course works and confusion on the roads as we scrambled to get the flaggers to their positions before their buggies were rolling. There was a little chaos and many teams were not prepared as Sweepstakes called for first roll.

Triple Buggy Spin – The major incident on the course this weekend occurred Sunday during a joint PhiDelt and Apex Roll. After passing Panther Hollow bridge and the transition flaggers the driver of the lead PhiDelt buggy felt, or heard something that upset her enough to put on the brakes. After applying the brakes the buggy went into a spin and came to a stop in the middle of the roadway. Unfortunately they were being closely followed by 2 Apex buggies ‘Ember’ and ‘Kyle’. Upon seeing stop flags Ember applied the brakes and pulled left, spinning around and coming to a stop against the sidewalk. ‘Kyle’ seeing this attempted to steer to a wide right of the pileup and applied the brakes as she headed towards the monument. ‘Kyle’ at this point also spun around and came to a stop leaving 3 buggies facing the wrong direction just upstream of the monument. EMS cleared all the drivers for be pushed through but this very unexpected turn of events results in a significant rolls slow-down.

In Attendance 

Observations (Saturday Gallery | Sunday Gallery) Continue reading →

As promised (and only a day late), here is the timing data as acquired and analyzed by Shafeeq. As a reminder, this system works by taking a video and extrapolating speed as a buggy passes through two designated points in the frame. “Steps” refers to the steps towards the end of the Freeroll between the monument and chute flagger. “Meter” refers to a point approximately half way though the Chute. % Speed Lost is a estimation of the amount of speed a buggy bleeds off making the Chute turn. It is not terribly surprising that the fastest teams into and out of the Chute (in order) are: SDC, Fringe, Spirit, and CIA. Based on these preliminary numbers, SDC’s Malice will be the buggy to beat in two weeks.

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 →