May 5, 2026
Congratulations to the new Apex executive board! I’ve enjoyed working with all of you this year, and I’m very happy with my new role and look forward to working with new pushers. As push captain, I hope to work on better data collection for our pushers in order to better support our roster selection process. I also plan to continue meching because I really enjoy being in shop, and we’ll see how much I decide to be involved with the new design/build cycle: my sophomore fall schedule is shaping up to be my most difficult semester so far, and my robotic build is calling to me for some new updates.
Now that elections are over, it’s a good time to reflect on what I’ve learned from Apex Buggy during my first year at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) and what I’ve been able to contribute to this wonderful team. When I came to CMU, I had no idea I was going to become so involved in buggy. After talking to the team at the Apex table in front of The Fence, I went to shop hours during recruiting week at the beginning of the year and somehow just kept going every week.
I was going to rolls very soon after joining, and buggy quickly became the highlight of my week. I loved waking up at 4:30am on the weekends, and buggy was crucial to keeping my spirits up during stressful weeks and midterm season. In the shop, I can forget about homework; working hands-on and being a part of a team effort consistently throughout the semester has been great.
Before college, I struggled to find a place where I could work on something I loved long-term with a team: I didn’t become involved in robotics early enough in high school, and programming and cybersecurity were becoming less enjoyable for me, as it meant so much time on the computer. Buggy combines both mechanical work and also encourages grass-touching, so I’ve realized that it’s one of the best things that I’ve gotten out of CMU.
My work on my robotic buggy build will be included in a separate postmortem, describing the issues we faced during capes and a pre-rolls course walk. You can expect many updates to this project over the summer.
Ever since I joined the team, I’ve been going to shop hours consistently throughout the year; only when I was sick did I miss a few days. In the first few weeks, I kept some notes about what I did every day in shop and the rest are from my memory:
August 27
I believe this is when Ray presented the Buggy Crash Course and reserved an enormous room in Tepper and we all sat around in the middle. I also remember meeting Ethan and Victor here.
Sept 1, 2025: 3-5pm shop hours
Looking back, it’s kinda crazy that I did all this after the first week of classes:
Nov 28, 2025: 2-5pm
Helped Katrina and Ray cut out the front hatch of Chimera
What I did in Apex shop throughout the year:
Honestly it’s all a blur now. I believe I started going to rolls as just a mech, and then began pushing soon after. After my very first rolls, I designed and 3D-printed an allen key handle to make installing the back wheels of Molotov and Solaris easier, and that continues to see use today.
I quickly found out that I liked pushing hill 5 the most, because I’m faster than I am strong. I eventually was able to push a hill 1, which was not enjoyable. I also pushed an Iron Man (hills 3, 4, and 5 in one roll) one day for fun.
I initially believed I was pushing hill 1 (after what my push captain told me), so I went to get timed for hill 1. However, I ended up pushing a hill 4 on the Men’s B team, and our heat was scheduled near the end of the first day, many hours after I woke up to do my mechanic duties.
As a mech, I was tasked with carrying the buggy and putting on heated wheels for a few of our first few heats, and then I flagged the later heats. Overall, I never felt that Raceday was very hectic, and perhaps that is a testament to how well we’ve been prepared for this day despite not having Truck Weekend.
After our heat, we were quite surprised to learn that we had beaten the Apex Mens A time, but perhaps we cooked a little too hard because we were disqualified for a hills 3-4 transition. Upon seeing the evidence, it was clear that the DQ was absolutely justified, and there are a few reasons why I think it occurred:
First, the hill 4 pushing guide suggests that the hill 3 pusher bring the buggy all the way to the end of the transition zone, which led me to stand as far up the transition zone as possible, which is where I expected the buggy. Even though I started running from within the transition zone, I ended up several feet beyond the second line by the time I received the buggy.
Second, as a pusher it’s often difficult to pay attention to the transition zones while you are trying to run and push as fast as possible; you end up relying on the next pusher’s position to decide when to start the transition, not the painted transition lines. This kind of tunnel vision is why getting transition zone practice during rolls and push practice is so important.
The importance of a good sleep schedule cannot be understated. It’s already difficult to have a consistent, reasonable sleep schedule at CMU, and having rolls on the weekend further complicates things. As I’ve painfully learned throughout the year, it gets really hard to enjoy shop hours and especially rolls if you don’t get enough sleep, and that effect compounds when you aren’t able to finish your assignments on time due to buggy activities.
From my own experience (as someone who doesn’t really exercise consistently during the week), it is counterproductive to conserve your energy before getting timed. Do some intense warmups before getting your actual time, because I’ve noticed that I get faster a second time during several push practices and on different hills.
During shop hours, Gojo is your best friend; I don’t really leave shop hours without using it. Don’t take shortcuts when handling more hazardous materials!
To new mechs: learn how to install wheels on the back of Solaris and Molotov early on. It is important to get the order of tightening the bolt versus tightening the lock nut right while being fast. I suggest tightening the bolt while using a wrench to hold the nut in place to get the nut down the bolt efficiently, and stopping when the nut is close to the mounting bracket. Then, tighten the bolt down completely without holding the nut. Then tighten the nut all the way while keeping the bolt in place.
There’s a lot more I could have written about, but I’d end up never finishing this post. I look forward to another year of buggy and bales with Apex.
Thanks for reading.