Rolls Report: March 22 & 23 – New Buggy-Palooza

This weekend was a monster, so much happened that this if this comes out around the usual time it will be a miracle. BUT, before I can get into the craziness that was this weekend I have one thing that I need to mention first. Next weekend I will be indisposed with another event down south at CalU. I need will need help writing next weekend’s rolls report, so if you have wanted to contribute, or have ever thought about getting some notes in this’ll be your best chance to do so. Please email news@cmubuggy.org if you’re interested in helping and I’ll get you the info you need.

Saturday was as windy as Sunday was COLD. Pittsburgh’s winter party keeps on going, everyone at this point is either drunk or asleep on every possible surface. Despite the sun coming up, Pittsburgh just keeps blaring the winter music not getting the hit that it was fun, but we got things to do. With the weather aside, CIA, Fringe and Spirit all brought out new buggies on saturday who now have 4 potential days left to get qualified. It’ll be a hard battle for all of them. With a significant lack of time this year, it was amazing to see rolls end at 8:43 on Satuday. All the bundled up alumni that showed up on Sunday were treated to dusty slick roads and some amazing driving.

In Attendance  (new buggies in green)

Org Saturday Sunday
AEPi Kamikaze
Apex Ember, Phoenix Ember, Phoenix
CIA Icarus, Ascension, Impulse, Freyja Icarus, Impulse, Freyja
Fringe NBXIV, Beacon, Bissa NBXIV, Beacon, Banyan
PiKA Banshee, Chimera Banshee, Chimera
SAE Lucy Rubicon
SDC Vice, Bane, Malice, Avarice, Psychosis Vice, Bane, Malice, Avarice, Psychosis
SigEp Kraken, Mamba, Barracuda Barracuda, Pandora
SigNu Bungarus Krait
Spirit Zenith, Zuke, Seraph Zenith, Kingpin II, Zuke, Seraph, Haraka

Observations (Saturday Gallery | Sunday Gallery) Continue reading

Rolls Report: March 16 – Skeleton Day

There were only 5 orgs out on sunday for the 1.5 hours of rolls and it was one of the smoothest yet. Teams that came out were generally the most skeleton crews that have ever seen the course, but they were all very efficient and organized. The cones were back out on the course flagging those awful potholes. Despite Lars being the only regular sweepstakes person there, a few pass tests happened on the frigid Sunday morning and we also got to see our first new buggy of the year!

It was so cold that morning that my phone died  midway not leaving any chance for me to even think about the livestream. Hopefully in the last few weeks we have left I’ll be able to get one going as well as charge up the GoPros for some Freeroll timing.

In Attendance 

Org Saturday
AEPi
Apex “Arson?”,Phoenix
CIA Impulse
Fringe Beacon, Bissa
PiKA
NROTC
SAE
SDC Vice, Bane, Malice, Psychosis
SigEp
SigNu
Spirit Kingpin II, Zuke

Observations (Sunday Gallery) Continue reading

Carnival Plans – Raceday

The same group that is working on the updates to design comp has also been doing some tinkering with Raceday. And for those of you that are worried, no we are not changing the rules, we wouldn’t touch that with an eleven foot pole, but we hope some of the flow will be improved a bit this year (pending the usual weathery culprits of course).

As the buggy fanatics that we know you are, we feel like you deserve to know as much as we do. A lot got covered in the last meeting, so this is a meaty post. If you need to, wait till you’re more hungry, or take in a bit now and take the rest home in a doggy bag to eat later.
Of course, we’re still a few weeks out, so nearly all of this is potentially subject to change.

DSC05191

Continue reading

Rolls Report: March 1 – Is It Spring?

AND WE’RE BACK! Well… by we, I mean buggy, and by back, I mean rolls… The snow gave a one day reprieve and Sweepstakes jumped on the opportunity to start off the year. It was a cold start to the year, but boy was it a start, everything under the sun happened that Saturday. Some barricades were still missing so where there would normally be double barricades there would only be one. Cars tried to sneak on the course when the barricaders weren’t looking, some getting very close.

After the relentless winter that Pittsburgh has had this year, the course is in its worst condition yet. There are not many students (if any at this point) that will remember how bad lane 2 used to be before it was paved, but the roads have now gotten to the point where Sweepstakes is using Carnival cones to mark the egregious potholes and ice patches around the course. These new obstacles slowed down a lot of buggies and seriously effected their line in some cases. Then again, that was probably a good thing given the size of some of the holes out there.

In Attendance 

Org Saturday
AEPi
Apex Phoenix
CIA
Fringe
PiKA Banshee, Chimera
NROTC Patriot
SAE Lucy, Rubicon
SDC Vice, Bane, Malice, Avarice, Psychosis
SigEp Mamba, Barracuda
SigNu Bungarus Krait
Spirit Kingpin II, Seraph, Haraka

Observations (Saturday Gallery) Continue reading

Rolls Report: Feb 22 & 23 – SABOTAGE

Despite the freak snow storm earlier in the week, Pittsburgh decided to warm up and clear up just for the weekend. At the start of last week, there were also only two orgs with caped buggies, but by the end of the week, there were enough to make rolls happen. Against all odds, rolls were certainly possible, but come early Friday evening rolls had been cancelled… Continue reading

Rolls are on!… snow?

Alright, this is not my usual time to put up a post, but last night Pittsburgh got a freak blizzard over a couple hours from 9 to 11 or so. So in what I will still claim is a good idea, I decided to head over to the course after it was all over and capture what I could of the snow-covered course. I managed to get there before the plows, but not before cars had already carved their own path. None-the-less, here’s what the course could look like if buggies ran in the snow. Continue reading

Carnival Plans – Design Competition

Hey guys, it’s been around 2 months since the last post went up, so it’s time to get back into the rhythm before rolls start up. This is a big year as Carnival is celebrating its 100th year, and it’s only 8 weeks away! Because of this, the buggy organizers are working hard on making this year special. There are some special additions as well as a few major changes that we’re looking at.

The design comp chair this year, Connor Hayes (Apex founder), has some pretty awesome ideas to improve design comp and make it a bit more interesting, BUT he’s looking for some feedback from the community and has written the following…

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Freeroll Times: Fall 2013 – Nov 16

Here it is, the final times from the Fall. Starting to get a system down, so hopefully we can get some good data each week as we get closer to Raceday.

Unexpected VisitorThis time we had a visitor during rolls, but fortunately, he didn’t cause any trouble.

Fastest times from Each org

Org Saturday
AEPi
Apex Phoenix – 1:05.92
CIA Freyja – 1:14.75
Fringe Bissa – 0:57.14
PiKA Banshee – 0:56.12
SAE Lucy – 1:15.50
SDC Malice – 0:54.58
SigEp Baraccuda – 1:10.18
SigNu Krait – 1:01.54
Spirit Kingpin 2 – 1:01.04

Continue reading

Freeroll Times: Fall 2013 – Nov 9 & 10

Alright, This took a bit to get together, but I finally managed to get all the times measured out from the second to last weekend of rolls this fall (Nov 9th and 10th). This was also the first weekend that I was able to use our new GoPros which were a dream. They were easy to set up, lasted the whole day, and gave me the ability to record in different resolutions and frame speeds. The only thing slowing the process down now is the post processing that needs to be done to extract all the times from the video. Continue reading