{"id":1295,"date":"2011-03-21T11:08:57","date_gmt":"2011-03-21T15:08:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cmubuggy.org\/news\/?p=1295"},"modified":"2023-09-04T11:13:25","modified_gmt":"2023-09-04T16:13:25","slug":"rolls-report-march-19-20","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cmubuggy.org\/news\/2011\/03\/rolls-report-march-19-20\/","title":{"rendered":"Rolls Report: March 19 &#038; 20"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright\" title=\"Mamba vs Squirrel\" src=\"https:\/\/photos.smugmug.com\/2010-2011\/Spring-Rolls-Mar-19\/i-r2DKtMD\/0\/69d4ae55\/Th\/DSC_8559-Th.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/>All of a sudden spring break is behind us and we&#8217;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&#8217;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. \u00a0We&#8217;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.<\/p>\n<p>In Attendance (buggies newest to oldest, <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\">2011 buggies<\/span>, <span style=\"color: #008000;\">buggies qualified with at least one driver<\/span>)<\/p>\n<table class=\"data\" style=\"margin-bottom: 20px;\" border=\"0\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<th>Org<\/th>\n<th>Saturday<\/th>\n<th>Sunday<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>AEPi<\/td>\n<td>Kamikaze, Zephyrus, Robobuggy<\/td>\n<td>Zephyrus<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>CIA<\/td>\n<td><span style=\"color: #ff9900;\">Ascension<\/span>, <span style=\"color: #008000;\">Frejya<\/span>, Renaissance, Quasar<\/td>\n<td><span style=\"color: #ff9900;\">Ascension<\/span>, <span style=\"color: #008000;\">Frejya<\/span>, Renaissance, Quasar<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Fringe<\/td>\n<td><span style=\"color: #ff9900;\">NBXI<\/span>, <span style=\"color: #008000;\">Borealis<\/span>, <span style=\"color: #008000;\">Blizzard<\/span><\/td>\n<td><span style=\"color: #ff9900;\">NBXI<\/span>, <span style=\"color: #008000;\">Borealis, Blizzard<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>KapSig<\/td>\n<td><span style=\"color: #008000;\">Apache<\/span><\/td>\n<td><span style=\"color: #008000;\">Apache<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>PiKA<\/td>\n<td><span style=\"color: #ffcc00;\"><span style=\"color: #ff9900;\">RD2011<\/span><\/span>, <span style=\"color: #008000;\">Chimera<\/span>, Knightfall<\/td>\n<td><span style=\"color: #ff9900;\">RD2011<\/span>, Chimera, Knightfall, <span style=\"color: #008000;\">Zeus<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Pioneers<\/td>\n<td>Chaos<\/td>\n<td>Chaos<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>SAE<\/td>\n<td>Rubicon<\/td>\n<td>Rubicon<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>SDC<\/td>\n<td><span style=\"color: #ff9900;\">Bane<\/span>, <span style=\"color: #008000;\">Avarice<\/span>, <span style=\"color: #008000;\">Psychosis<\/span>, Rage<\/td>\n<td><span style=\"color: #ff9900;\">Bane<\/span>, <span style=\"color: #008000;\">Avarice, Malice, Psychosis<\/span>, Rage<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>SigEp<\/td>\n<td><span style=\"color: #ff9900;\">Mamba<\/span>, <span style=\"color: #008000;\">Peregrine<\/span>, Pandora<\/td>\n<td><span style=\"color: #ff9900;\">Mamba<\/span>, <span style=\"color: #008000;\">Peregrine<\/span>, Pandora<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>SigNu<\/td>\n<td>Skua<\/td>\n<td>Skua<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Spirit<\/td>\n<td><span style=\"color: #008000;\">Fuko<\/span>, <span style=\"color: #008000;\">Haraka<\/span><\/td>\n<td><span style=\"color: #008000;\"><span style=\"color: #ff9900;\">Mapambazuko<\/span>,\u00a0Fuko<\/span>, <span style=\"color: #008000;\">Haraka<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p><strong>Observations<\/strong> (<a href=\"https:\/\/cmubuggy.smugmug.com\/2010-2011\/Spring-Rolls-Mar-19\">Saturday gallery<\/a>)<!--more--><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright\" title=\"BAMF\" src=\"https:\/\/photos.smugmug.com\/2010-2011\/Spring-Rolls-Mar-19\/i-87gdxCH\/0\/b792f640\/Th\/DSC_8480-Th.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright\" title=\"NBXI\" src=\"https:\/\/photos.smugmug.com\/2010-2011\/Spring-Rolls-Mar-19\/i-cTBbWH6\/0\/32e37a1d\/Th\/DSC_8524-Th.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a>Fringe brought out their new buggy. It was covered in a baggy pajama-style outfit and bodly labeled on one side as BAMF and on the other as NBXI. It seemed to roll very smoothly and quietly for a new reverse tryke. It was hard to say too much about the design with the temporary covering obscuring the lines, and the large boxy temporary fairings covering the front wheels. Casual observers won&#8217;t notice much different from the rest of Fringe&#8217;s fleet, but the design looks to be somewhere between SDC and PiKA&#8217;s builds in terms of experimentalness.<\/li>\n<li><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright\" title=\"SigEp's Mamba\" src=\"https:\/\/photos.smugmug.com\/2010-2011\/Spring-Rolls-Mar-19\/i-vPFnMSx\/0\/d207394f\/Th\/DSC_8492-Th.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright\" title=\"Mamba's windshield\" src=\"https:\/\/photos.smugmug.com\/2010-2011\/Spring-Rolls-Mar-19\/i-9D2x2ts\/0\/0117f09c\/Th\/DSC_8506-Th.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/>SigEp also added a buggy to the class of 2011. The buggy&#8217;s name is Mamba, joining Barracuda and Peregrine in SigEp&#8217;s newish tradition of exotic predatory animals names. I didn&#8217;t notice any striking departures from their previous designs, and it rolled decently for a first day out. The windshield is exceptionally small, with a very low brow.<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">MAJOR UPDATE<\/span> :\u00a0Spirit also debuted a new buggy on Sunday named Mapambazuko (meaning &#8220;sunrise&#8221; in Swahili). \u00a0I left town after rolls on Saturday, and nobody told me about it when I asked what happened Sunday. \u00a0I&#8217;ll have to have some words with my sources. \u00a0Mapa (is there a preferred nickname yet?) got 3 rolls in on Sunday. \u00a0This is the first new buggy for Spirit since 2004 and I&#8217;ve got to admit I didn&#8217;t put much weight in rumors that they were close to finishing one this year. \u00a0Congrats to them for getting it on the course, and my apologies for snubbing the debut. \u00a0It will be prominently featured next week.<\/li>\n<li><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright\" title=\"SigNu back on the course\" src=\"https:\/\/photos.smugmug.com\/2010-2011\/Spring-Rolls-Mar-19\/i-Prq9gDw\/0\/4337f517\/Th\/DSC_8581-Th.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/>SigNu made the right call, manned up, and got back on the course. I don&#8217;t have any inside info, but if I had to infer from what I saw, the brothers taking over the program are almost all new. It&#8217;s too bad that they weren&#8217;t able to retain more knowledge in the house, but it&#8217;s great that there was a contingent not willing to let the program die. On her first roll Saturday, their new driver started to head to the wrong side of the monument on her first roll, veered back to the correct side and then hit the brakes and spun to a stop near the chute flag. After the alum driving the follow truck talked things over, they decided they were OK to continue around the course. That wasn&#8217;t enough excitement though, so the two mechanics assigned to catch the buggy at the finish line wandered back to the tent. The hill 5 ran full speed over the line and let go, sending the buggy careening towards PiKA and CIA&#8217;s buggies waiting to roll. Credit to the hill 5 who was able to catch back up, grab the pushbar, and drag his feet to stop the buggy before it smashed into the competition. \u00a0More action on Sunday when they side-swiped the outside bales. \u00a0They only got two rolls from the weekend to count towards qualification, but the important thing is that they made it out.<\/li>\n<li><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright\" title=\"Chimera with driver\" src=\"https:\/\/photos.smugmug.com\/2010-2011\/Spring-Rolls-Mar-19\/i-NvSQKZt\/0\/f3849bfb\/Th\/DSC_8514-Th.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/>PiKA&#8217;s Chimera spun in the chute, with some chute observers saying it looked like the rear wheel popped out of its attachment before or during the spin. \u00a0That&#8217;s a failure we&#8217;ve seen a couple of times from Chimera in the past, so it could be what happened. \u00a0The impact late on the inside bales was light and it seemed to actually put the driver in a cheerful mood. \u00a0When I got down there she was hopping about from bale to bale and then stuck this\u00a0alluring\u00a0pose for me, the\u00a0paparazzi.<\/li>\n<li><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright\" title=\"Apache with bondo\" src=\"https:\/\/photos.smugmug.com\/2010-2011\/Spring-Rolls-Mar-19\/i-zVbtK3N\/0\/055b7b85\/Th\/DSC_8534-Th.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/>KapSig was out both days, but only got one roll in each day. \u00a0Their driver, Amy has driven before so that was actually enough to qualify her in their new buggy Apache. \u00a0When Apache came out in the fall it had a pretty decent silver paint job, but they weren&#8217;t satisfied and have gone back to the body shop and applied an intense layer of Bondo. \u00a0If they have the manpower to sand it all smooth it ought to be pretty slick. \u00a0Better buy some big packs of 80 grit.<\/li>\n<li><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright\" title=\"spirit on xootrs\" src=\"https:\/\/photos.smugmug.com\/2010-2011\/Spring-Rolls-Mar-19\/i-JD2Pn3X\/0\/ee5841a3\/Th\/DSC_8543-Th.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/>Spirit was back on regular xootrs after last week&#8217;s spoke failure, but they were still rolling on custom compounds. \u00a0No spins on the weekend, and they didn&#8217;t look to have slowed it down very much, so maybe they figured out the right combination of tweaks.<\/li>\n<li>Lots of pass tests going on as teams try to get that requirement out of the way while they still have a buggy going slowly. \u00a0There were multiple cases of waiting too long to send the second buggy, and one funny one by Fringe in which the eager hill 2 jumped the gun and the pass happened about 4 feet into the freeroll before the follow car started moving. \u00a0Not that I&#8217;m criticizing, I was also terrible at timing those.<\/li>\n<li>Robobuggy was sent down the hill too fast for its remote human driver and it crashed into the first curb. \u00a0The front fork was reportedly a bit bent up, so hopefully they aren&#8217;t too sidetracked working on the mechanical basics while they try to move towards the actual robotic driving. \u00a0<em>UPDATE<\/em>: \u00a0It was the steering servo&#8217;s fault, some light damage, the fork was fine, and the software is already pretty well in place. \u00a0Can&#8217;t wait to see it roll all the way around.<\/li>\n<li>SDC, PiKA, and Fringe were at the top of the freeroll leader board for the weekend, closely spaced but in that order. \u00a0All three of the elite orgs seem to be putting down no-sweat efforts on the downhill while they work on the rest of the early-spring details with new buggies and new pushers. \u00a0Early spring is pretty much over though, and I would be surprised if we don&#8217;t see some heat soon. \u00a0Spirit, SigEp, and CIA are in the next level with Spirit 5-6 seconds off of the best times from the weekend.<\/li>\n<li>CIA posted their best times with their new buggy, Ascension which is encouraging. \u00a0SDC&#8217;s Bane is right at the top of the list, less than a second behind their standard bearer, Malice. \u00a0PiKA&#8217;s &#8220;RD2011&#8221; is 4 seconds behind Chimera but in the lead cluster after 8 rolls. Fringe&#8217;s new buggy sped up quickly, and is already ahead of most teams (although well behind their best) with one weekend on the odometer. \u00a0SigEp&#8217;s Mamba was 10 seconds behind their fastest roll in the middle of the pack. \u00a0KapSig is showing some promise, posting some consistent times that are already better than SAE, Pioneers, and AEPi. \u00a0They&#8217;re only 6 seconds behind CIA&#8217;s time from the weekend. \u00a06 seconds sounds like a lot to top tier teams, but when you&#8217;re in the 75 second freeroll range, there are lots of places to find a few seconds.<\/li>\n<li>Sweepstakes was able to work out a deal with the city <a href=\"cmubuggy.org\/news\/2011\/03\/push-practice-delayed-indefinitely-pending-city-review\/\">re: push practice<\/a>, and so it got underway early last week. \u00a0The resolution was mostly that the CMU&#8217;s police and insurance would vouch for safe push practice or take care of anything that might happen. \u00a0There are also some new barricading and safety policies.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>If you&#8217;re worried about the squirrel in the lead picture from this post, don&#8217;t worry he made it safely across the road in front of Mamba. \u00a0If that&#8217;s\u00a0disappointing\u00a0to you, I&#8217;m guessing you&#8217;re a driver.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>All of a sudden spring break is behind us and we&#8217;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 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1295","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rolls-reports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cmubuggy.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1295","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cmubuggy.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cmubuggy.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cmubuggy.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cmubuggy.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1295"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/cmubuggy.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1295\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9535,"href":"https:\/\/cmubuggy.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1295\/revisions\/9535"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cmubuggy.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cmubuggy.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cmubuggy.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}