Hello, alumni! Homecoming’s best event, Mini-Raceday, is coming up quickly– November 8 and 9, to be exact. We need volunteers to help with timing buggies, and possibly with some sort of broadcast or recording effort. If you’re interested in helping, please sign up here: cmubuggy.org/volunteer
There will be coffee and donuts!
To better serve the Buggy community, we will be keeping the Buggy Enhancement Grant application open all semester. Half of the remaining unallocated funds from the grant pool will be available on a first-come-first-served basis.
Apply Here:
http://cmubuggy.org/2025fallgrant
After you submit your application, expect an email from the committee the following week with questions and concerns that they would like to see addressed. Once you have responded to the committee’s feedback, we’ll hold the final vote on your grant proposal.
Happy October, James here! With the start of spooky season, Dan is off in the woods, so I will be guest writing (ghost writing? 👻) this weekend’s rolls report. We got a few more spectators this weekend than normal, with visiting families around the course. CMU has finally moved Family Weekend to not conflict with Fall Break. On that note, there are not rolls scheduled the next 2 weekends (10/11 – 10/19) with the next possible rolls on 10/25 due to Fall Break.
| Org | Saturday | Sunday |
|---|---|---|
| Apex | Solaris, Helios | Solaris, Helios |
| CIA | Goldfinch, Kingfisher, Roadrunner | Kingfisher, Emperor |
| Fringe | Bermuda, Baltic, Blackbird | Blackbird, Bermuda |
| Robobuggy | NAND, Short Circuit | — |
| SDC | Paranoia, Lust | Paranoia, Lust |
| Spirit | Inviscid, Seraph, Zuke | Seraph, Inviscid, Zuke |
Photos: Saturday Gallery (upload) | Sunday Gallery (upload)
Continue readingWe have an exciting update on the Buggy Enhancement Grant drone project. This week was our first test of automatically generating composite images of the driver’s line for every buggy for a full day of rolls. This system enables quick turnaround for driver’s to analyze their line and make incremental improvements as they work up to raceday speed. The original drone footage gives an incomparable view of the speed and handling of the buggy as the driver navigates through the chute, and the composite images highlight minute differences in the geometry of the turn.
This is a multidisciplinary multi-organization project led by Tjaden “TJ” Bridges of SDC, and received funding as part of the spring 2024 Buggy Enhancement Grant campaign. It truly captures the spirit of the Buggy Enhancement Grant program by making the sport faster, safer, and more enjoyable for everyone.
You can view the full set of composite images on Saturday’s gallery. Footage is uploaded to CMUBuggyDrones on YouTube.
The footage and images are tools for you to make your team safer and faster. They are not a substitute for caution and good judgement in how the drivers, mechanics, and pushers plan how to safely get the team up to speed.
The biggest challenge for this project came from the logistics of getting permission from everyone to have the drone in the air during their rolls and ensuring all of the equipment is prepped and ready for every day of rolls.
Wind conditions permitting, we record from 50 meters above the northwest corner of Schenley Drive and Frew Street with the camera is tilted down at 55 degrees. We try to keep a few meters leading up to the chute flag in view so drivers have good feedback on the timing of when they should start the turn.
The image compositing is done with an OpenCV Python script. A background subtractor generates an on the fly model of the road and highlights differences between frames. A blob detector then identifies candidate moving objects in each frame, and a set of Kalman filters track the trajectories between frames. This allows us to filter out small motion and slow moving objects, but the occasional goose in flight still gets its own line photo. The relevant frames are all aligned to the first frame for each buggy, and the tracking data gives us a mask to efficiently apply a bit of math to the pixel values that selectively lightens or darkens the composite image. Labeling the images with the org/buggy is still a manual process, but we’re working on training an image classifier to auto tag the images.
It was Great Race Weekend in Pittsburgh, which means no permits for Sunday Rolls. In past years that meant cancelling the full weekend, but this crew didn’t let that stop them; they still rolled on Saturday morning. This was a very efficient day of rolls, with almost no incidents to speak of. The teams got a lot of practice and another returning organization made their season debut, read on!
Who’s that coming up the hill?
| Org | Saturday |
| Apex | Solaris, Molotov |
| CIA | Emperor, Kingfisher, Goldfinch, Roadrunner |
| Fringe | Baltic, Bermuda, Blind Faith |
| PiKA | Raptor |
| Robobuggy | Short Circuit, NAND |
| SDC | Paranoia, Avarice |
| Spirit | Kingpin, Zuke, Inviscid |
Photos: Saturday Gallery (upload)
Continue readingI am overjoyed to announce that 100% of the grant applications we received for the Fall 2025 grant campaign have been funded! Thank you to all of our applicants for taking time to assemble such strong applications!
Caroline Kiesnowski received funding to install an electrical hookup for the shared mill that resides between the Fringe and Apex shops.
Adithi Phadke received funding to build RTK data loggers for SPIRIT Racing Systems.
Frank Robb received funding to purchase FIA impact data recorders for potentially the entire fleet of rolling buggies. The grant funds hardware for any rolling buggy, so please reach out if you are interested in collecting this data for your team.
Wade Gordon received funding to purchase software and equipment to facilitate getting real time footage from a drone to the broadcast truck.
Another weekend of beautiful weather for buggy! We had two smooth days of rolls with only a few incidents, and all were just the type of actions you would expect to see as new drivers start gaining speed. We saw the same 6 orgs out again this weekend, we hope to see a few more returning teams back soon, read on for more details!
Roadrunner rolling out, one of 5 CIA buggies from this weekend
| Org | Saturday | Sunday |
| Apex | Helios, Solaris, Molotov | Helios, Scorch |
| CIA | Emperor, Kingfisher, Goldfinch, Roadrunner | Starling, Emperor, Goldfinch |
| Fringe | Blackbird, Bermuda, Blind Faith | Baltic, Bermuda |
| Robobuggy | Short Circuit, NAND | — |
| SDC | Lust, Paranoia, Avarice | Lust, Paranoia, Avarice |
| Spirit | Kingpin, Zuke, Inviscid | Inviscid, Zuke |
Photos: Saturday Gallery (upload) / Sunday Gallery (upload)
Continue readingWelcome to Sweepstakes 2026! Dan Becerra, your duly elected rolls reporter, back for another year where I will do my best to report on the teams, the incidents, and the storylines leading up to Raceday (April 9 & 10!). This is the earliest calendar date for rolls since the BAA has kept records of this (back to at least 2008). Kudos to the five large independent orgs and Robobuggy making a quorum for this early first weekend. Read on to see which buggies came out this year including at least one not seen for a while!
Blue skies, empty lawns, and a group of people staring at one very specific patch of road – it’s buggy season!
| Org | Saturday | Sunday |
| Apex | Helios, Solaris | Helios, Scorch, Molotov |
| CIA | Emperor, Starling, Kingfisher | Starling, Kingfisher, Goldfinch |
| Fringe | Baltic, Blind Faith | Blackbird, Baltic |
| Robobuggy | NAND, Short Circuit | NAND, Short Circuit |
| SDC | Lust, Paranoia | Lust, Paranoia |
| Spirit | Kingpin, Zuke, Seraph | Kingpin, Zuke, Seraph |
Photos: Saturday Gallery (upload) / Sunday Gallery (upload)
Continue reading
Table of Contents: Intro & 1920; 1921-1923; 1924-1927; 1928-1932; 1933-1935; 1936-1939; 1940-1945; 1946-1949; 1950-1953; 1954-1956; 1957-1959; 1960-1963; 1964-1966; 1967-1969; 1970-1973; 1974-1976; 1977-1979; 1980-1983; 1984-1986; 1987-1989; 1990-1993; 1994-1996; 1997-1999; 2000-2003; 2004-2006; 2007-2009; 2010; 2011; 2012; 2013; 2014; 2015; 2016; 2017; 2018; 2019; Recap & 2020; 2021; 2022
This week, the 100+ Years of Buggy History series continues on its “fourth school year post-Raceday” schedule and brings you…2022! After a 2 year postponement, we’re finally able to celebrate Buggy100! It’s the first Raceday of the post-COVID era, though “post-COVID” is a bit of a misnomer since COVID affects at least 1 team on Raceday. It’s also the first Raceday of the post-Skibo Gym era, meaning one fewer lane for teams to roll in. And mother nature made for a rocky return in the Spring. But other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?
Continue readingApply Here:
http://cmubuggy.org/2025fallgrant
It is time to submit your ideas for Buggy Enhancement Grants for the fall semester! We have over $12,000 available for this round of funding. This money belongs to you as a member of the buggy community to enhance your enjoyment of the sport! If you have ideas that you think will enhance your buggy experience, we want to hear from you!
Submissions are due by September 15, and will be reviewed by the Buggy Endowed Fund Committee the following week. Applicants will have 1 week to respond to committee feedback before the final vote. Approved grants will then be announced October 1st.
Proposals can be specific to your team. Please include some details on how the community as a whole will benefit from funding your project. For example, you might share documentation of your process, publish a video, or give a talk about your findings. You might build something to collect better data during rolls, test out a new material, or build something to make chores easier.
Apply Here:
http://cmubuggy.org/2025fallgrant
For RD 2025 Buggy Enhancement Grants, we approved $5,573 to fund 7 projects from 8 different organizations.
For more information on the grant program, including previously approved grant applications, materials and findings from previously approved grants, how to spend your grant money, and more, please read All About Buggy Enhancement Grants.
