what is buggy?
good to get the hard questions out of the way first.
In short, Carnegie Mellon student organizations form teams, certain students (mechanics) build a non-motorized rolling torpedo thingy (the buggy) then put a VERY small person in it (the driver) in and push them around a course like a baton in a relay race. It’s hard for the person inside to see where on the course they are sometimes — they are very close to the groundm, after all — so at certain points on the course, there are teammates (flaggers) who stick a flag in the driver’s face saying “turn now!” The video should help explain the rest.
There’s a person in there?
Yes.
How did this become a thing?
*ahem *
It was a chilly morning on May 14, 1920, and the Carnegie Tech campus was beginning to hatch its first signs of life. The school was preparing for its first university-wide celebration called Campus Week. By 9:30 that morning, a handful of students were already at play, racing downhill in what could only be described as “a conglomeration of rain barrels with bicycle wheels, four wheeled orange crates, and three wheeled trash cans.” This activity would soon become a formalized sport and a staple of Carnegie Mellon: a race called “Sweepstakes” more commonly known as “buggy."
Sounds kinda disorganized…
Sure, but since the inception of buggy nearly a century ago, a lot has changed. The Campus Week celebration is now called “Carnival,” an extended weekend where undergraduate classes are cancelled to make way for festivities -- including the multi-day Sweepstakes tournament. The tournament saw a blossoming of interest, largely from independent organizations and fraternities. To accommodate the new participants, the racecourse was extended to include uphill and downhill portions, and team roles expanded to include more students. Nowadays, most buggy teams include:
okay, that sounds awesome…
It is. The Sweepstakes tournament has seen an explosion of innovation, as student groups have devised new methods to race faster, safer, and with more control. If you’d like, feel free to see how SPIRIT Buggy does its work and what differentiates it from other teams here.