Rolls Report: March 16 – Skeleton Day

Posted on | by ben | 8 Comments on 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

Posted on | by ben | 11 Comments on 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?

Posted on | by ben | 9 Comments on 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

Posted on | by ben | 8 Comments on 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?

Posted on | by ben | 8 Comments on 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

Posted on | by ben | 28 Comments on 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…

Continue reading →

Freeroll Times: Fall 2013 – Nov 16

Posted on | by ben | 11 Comments on 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

Posted on | by ben

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 →

Rolls Report: Nov 16 – End of Fall Season

Posted on | by ben | 20 Comments on Rolls Report: Nov 16 – End of Fall Season

Congrats to all the teams that made it through the season. Rolls are all over until the spring, so it’s time for you all to finish up that work you’ve been putting off. No not school work, those new buggies that you’ve been planning on building! Stories are already flying around and I for one can’t wait to see what comes out next spring.

Unfortunately, we only had one day this weekend with Sunday getting a huge amount of rain early in the morning. But that’s not to say we were without an exciting day of rolls on Saturday, sadly, by no fault of the teams themselves. We had nearly every team out this weekend as a few of the usual no-shows showed their faces on what was a surprisingly nice morning.

In Attendance 

Org Saturday
AEPi
Apex Phoenix
CIA Ascension, Orca, Freyja
Fringe Beacon, Bissa, Bedlam, Banyan
PiKA Banshee
SAE Lucy, Rubicon
SDC Vice, Malice, Avarice, Psychosis, Rage
SigEp Barracuda, Pandora
SigNu Bungarus Krait
Spirit Kingpin II, Zuke, Seraph, Fuko

Observations (Saturday Gallery) Continue reading →