Buggy

How does it work?

Buggy teams spend all year building, testing and perfecting their buggys, with practice races held most Saturday and Sunday mornings. The 2-day penultimate event, attended by alumni from across the country, residents of Pittsburgh, and CMU students is held every April during CMU’s “Spring Carnival” break from classes. Up to 3 buggies face off in each heat, but the overall race format is time trials with the fastest time of the weekend being crowned the champion.

Involvement

As a member of the PiKA Racing team, I was heavily involved in Buggy for 4 years. As a freshman, I learned the ropes and participated in the construction of my teams first new buggy is 3 years. The following year I served on the three person committee that organizes the races as Safety Chairman, inspecting all team's buggies to ensure they meet design, construction, and safety specifications. In my Junior and Senior years, I was elected as my team’s Captain and led the design and construction of a new buggy. Both buggys I was involved in building have gone on to win multiple trophies.

Design

Buggy design is a delicate balance between size/weight and ridgidity/durability. Our buggys are designed to be as light as possible, incorporating advanced materials and fabrication techniques. We aim to perfect shell shapes that fit the driver (plus helmet) with minimal wasted volume and follow aerodynamic principals. While more weight does translate to more potential energy when rolling downhill, it also makes pushing the buggy uphill much harder and thus slower.

However light you build it, the buggy must still be up to the task of rolling down bumpy roads often littered with potholes, and being shoved over and over, and occasionally crashing into haybales. And they must be rigid enough to glide over road imperfections, slide around turns, and efficently transfer energy from the pusher to the wheels.

Four and even two wheeled designs were common in the past, but most modern buggies roll on 3 wheels, with either two in the back (standard trike configuration) or two in the front (areverse trike). Each layout has its advantages and disadvantages and comes with its own unique set challenges in regards to mechanical design, construciton, and driveability.

Pictured: Wraith (2018, Reverse), Cleo (2016, Standard), Banshee (2013 Standard)

Construction

All components of our buggys are custom designed and fabricated by the team. Buggy racing is highly competitive by nature, making these design and construciton specifics highly guarded information amoungst teams. But here's a brief general breakdown of some of the things I worked on:

• Composite Fabrication - The buggy shell is constructed of carbon fiber and other composite materials. Structural design draws inspiration from aerospace and conventional racecar bodies.
• Mold Making - Molds on which the composite materials are laid were designed in CAD and CNC machined.
• Chassis - I studied our team's past builds to try and understand the costs and benefits of various materials, designs, and construction methods, taking what I learned to design and fabricate all the compenents that make up the internal structure of the Buggy.
• Controls - I worked with current and former drivers to design steering and braking inputs to optimize them for comfort, ease of use, and reliabilty. I also fabricated the componenets that make up the controls using CNC and traditional machining methods.
• R&D - I researched and tested alternative materials and construction techniques for the buggy itself, as well as our custom manufactured wheels/tires. Asssisted in the development of tracking device utilizing accelerometor and other sensors to assist in test run performance.