Buggy: An Introduction

By J. P. Crawfish • Vol 4, Issue 1 • Aug. 27, 2025

So you’ve found yourself in, near, or aiding and abetting a carbon fiber tube going 35 miles per hour down a hill. Do not fear, this happens all the time. There are many reasons why you may find yourself in this situation:

1) You are short
2) You went up to the wrong table during club fair, but you didn’t realize and already took a lollipop, so you can’t do anything now except politely scan the QR code
3) You got so lost in Doherty that you ended up in the Stever basement
4) You are a mechanical engineering major
5) You were wandering around Schenley park at 4:30am
6) You are friends with mechanical engineering majors
7) Three ghosts visited you on Christmas Eve and you grossly misinterpreted their message
8) You have made eye contact with a mechanical engineering major at some point

Alongside complaining about 15122 and forgetting about the football team, accidentally joining a buggy team is a proud and century old Tartan tradition. Back in 1920, some spirited fraternity brothers made the first buggies, building and racing soapbox derby-like vehicles. These buggies were designed to look like fish, trolleys, bathtubs, and other whimsical and lively gizmos. Unfortunately, CMU students hold as much disdain for low-stakes whimsy as they do for windows, sleep, and preventing scurvy. However, thanks to the devoted efforts of generations of half-gifted, half idiotic, and fully intoxicated students, whimsy has been fully optimized out of buggy, allowing the sport to continue for decades.

Do CMU students not know how to have fun? Maybe. Or do CMU students just really like putting people under 5’2” into a torpedo with a big stick and three wheels and pushing them down hills? Or maybe both? It’s both. The answer is both. Two things can be true and two things are true because it’s both.

Buggy has a role for everyone with all consuming caffeine addictions who based their high school self-worth on academic competitions. Heard the story of Sisyphus and went ‘that sounds fun’? Become a pusher. Trust the safety designs of people you know can’t do basic arithmetic? Become a driver. Like carbon fiber splinters and sweeping leaves off the road before the sun rises? Become a mechanic. Under 5’2”? Maybe just avoid the area near the fence next week.

Now, buggy isn’t only about composites or carrying hay bales at 4:00 am. Buggy is about stressing out EHS. It’s about angering the City of Pittsburgh Street Maintenance Bureau. It’s about having a personal grudge against Pittsburgh weather as a concept. It’s about finding the right shawarma machine to heat your wheels. It’s about the very cool and insane people you will find that right shawarma machine with. Above all else, buggy is about the look of horror on the faces of non-Tartans when you pause and smugly say, “There's actually a person in there”.