Race Day 2013 Comments....

[Ben]

The times up on the Leaderboard should be correct and final. If people see any issues with them, let us know.

http://cmubuggy.org/raceday/leaderboard

[JYuhas]

Hey, Yea, I think I see an issue... The SAE Men's times are mixed up. SAE A (in Lucy/CCS) had one roll, the 2:27 which was pretty underwhelming. SAE B (In Rubi Redux) had their roll against Apex, where the Apex hill 2 got flattened and SAE got the reroll. (Anybody have pictures of this??) the First was the 3:01, then the reroll was the 2:46.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure those are how the times worked out.

[aepibuggy]

cmuTV:

Drops aren't really necessary to show. Only a hardcore buggy person (such as myself) would care about them at all. It would help, though, if the commentators let us know when someone failed drops (which I think they did for ROTC, but not SigEp). As I said before, 95% of drops don't matter at all, and definitely don't need to be shown. The only times I would think that they would want to be seen in general are for the teams expected to be in the Top 5. If your team completes a flawless run, and you're in the chute celebrating, the worst thing would be to find out much later in the day that your team failed drops (or, alternatively, if you're just outside of a trophy spot, your whole team gets to have a little party at another team's failure). Drops would also be nice to see for teams that seemed to have steering/mechanical problems during the race (see: ROTC), but that is a) Rare, and b) Unpredictable. In short, commentators telling people that drops were passed/failed would probably be enough (or, as someone suggested in a chat, you could put up a little green dot on the screen for passed drops or red for failed drops, but since it's not always clear who passed, it's probably easier for commentators to just state what they saw).

As for the commentators, I thought they were fine. Will has got the general hang of things and clearly does research beforehand, which is nice to see. I may have generally disagreed with a couple of things that were said by a couple of the buggy alums who were on the air, but they're entitled to state their opinions (even if those are wrong). I do kinda miss having a voice down in the chute though.

One final thing...On cmubuggy this year, there was an "Ask The Broadcasters" feature, but I'm not sure if/how that worked. A couple of suggestions that I know were sent in regarded the Fringe A pushbar DQ replay, and a leaderboard error regarding SDC B and Fringe B in Women's finals. Those were both corrected. However, some of the things sent in, such as questions about the SigEp Fire Safety DQ, or a note I sent in about this being AEPi's first finals ever, went unmentioned. So I don't know if that feature was working, or who was getting it. I kinda got the feeling during the broadcast that cmuTV was getting those requests, but the WRCT folks were not. It's also possible that cmuTV caught the same things that us watching at home did (like the Fringe A pushbar), and showed replays completely unrelated to that feature on the site. But I think that's a nice feature to have and maybe it could be better incorporated next year.

[JYuhas]

Yes. Looking at the finish line pictures, The Men's Reroll Heat 1 is Rubicon doing the 2:46.212. I don't see the finish picture for Lucy... Sam, do you have the rest of those finish pics?

So... SAE A with 2:27.296 finished top 10?? I don't quite know what to do with myself.

[nbonaddio]

Yes. Looking at the finish line pictures, The Men's Reroll Heat 1 is Rubicon doing the 2:46.212. I don't see the finish picture for Lucy... Sam, do you have the rest of those finish pics?

So... SAE A with 2:27.296 finished top 10?? I don't quite know what to do with myself.

Thank your deity of choice that this isn't 1987, where that time would have finished like, 50th.

[cmuTV]

One final thing...On cmubuggy this year, there was an "Ask The Broadcasters" feature, but I'm not sure if/how that worked... I kinda got the feeling during the broadcast that cmuTV was getting those requests, but the WRCT folks were not. It's also possible that cmuTV caught the same things that us watching at home did (like the Fringe A pushbar), and showed replays completely unrelated to that feature on the site. But I think that's a nice feature to have and maybe it could be better incorporated next year.

I was actually completely unaware of that feature and no one else in cmuTV knew it was happening. I doubt WRCT was any better informed, so if we answered the questions it was probably purely by coincidence / great minds thinking alike. That's definitely something to coordinate better next year. I was personally paying attention to the livestream chat, so if anyone had asked a question in there I would have tried to pass it on to the broadcasters.

Luke

[shafeeq]

Personally, I'd rather see drops, which are a part of the race, than booth announcers or filler videos, which are not. If there is replay capability, then not showing the drops live, but replaying the ones that fail or close would probably satisfy everyone.

The picture-in-picture was a great addition - though there were some cases where the small picture covered the important part of the main picture. In some of the close heats, the camera operators did a good job of keeping both competing buggies on the screen, and in others they just focused on one.

[JYuhas]

Yes. Looking at the finish line pictures, The Men's Reroll Heat 1 is Rubicon doing the 2:46.212. I don't see the finish picture for Lucy... Sam, do you have the rest of those finish pics?

So... SAE A with 2:27.296 finished top 10?? I don't quite know what to do with myself.

Thank your deity of choice that this isn't 1987, where that time would have finished like, 50th.

Thanks have been made, and a few sacrifices as well. Don't worry.

I guess I wasn't overly clear, but what I meant by 'not knowing what to do with myself' I was saying I wasn't sure whether to be happy SAE got 10th place finish, or disappointed that the only way it happened, and barely, was with multiple DQ's and poor weather.

[Ben]

CIA got top 10 a few years ago by DQ's and we got 1st in design, so I wouldn't be disappointed. You followed the rules better than those other guys.

[swiftsam]

Hey, Yea, I think I see an issue... The SAE Men's times are mixed up. SAE A (in Lucy/CCS) had one roll, the 2:27 which was pretty underwhelming. SAE B (In Rubi Redux) had their roll against Apex, where the Apex hill 2 got flattened and SAE got the reroll. (Anybody have pictures of this??) the First was the 3:01, then the reroll was the 2:46.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure those are how the times worked out.

Good catch, I think I introduced that mistake. It's corrected now.