by Michael Strauss

Created on: February 08, 2010

Every year, after the winter chill has seeped away and before the stress of finals has arrived, Carnegie Mellon students and administration hold a massive celebration known as Spring Carnival.  Open to both Carnegie Mellon affiliates and the general public, this three day fiesta is a massive affair complete with bands, shows, food, activities, competitions, and carnival attractions.  In addition to a high volume of student and faculty participation, Spring Carnival attracts thousands of local residents and usually thousands more alumni visit.

The most visible and main attraction of Spring Carnival is known as Midway.  Midway is located in the Morewood parking lot and has two distinct sections.  In one section, a professional carnival service provides large mechanical carnival rides, including a towering ferris wheel and classic prize giving carnival games.  Ticket prices are average for a local carnival and for a moderate fee you can purchase a bracelet for unlimited access to the rides.

The other section is unique to Carnegie Mellon’s Spring Carnival and is one of the highlights of the weekend.  Various campus organizations, including the majority of campus fraternities and sororities, build themed structures known as booths.  These booths are roughly 200 square feet and can be as tall as two stories and by rule each must have a free working game that is child friendly.  All booths are part of a competition, which drives each organization to make the best looking booths possible.  The competition, mostly invisible to attendees, makes the booth section of Midway an amazing spectacle of sights, filled with hours of entertainment.

Beyond Midway, Spring Carnival is filled with a wide variety of entertainment options.  For attendees interested in competition, two different races are run every year.  The less notable of the two is the Mobot Race, where Carnegie Mellon students race pre-programmed, cat-sized robots down a complicated course.  The more popular race is the Buggy Race, where various organizations compete in a team race to push and roll a miniature, human powered push car around a ¾ mile long course.  The race combines raw athletic power with advanced mechanical engineering and the freeroll section of the course, where buggies have reached up to 35 miles per hour, is the incredibly exciting to watch.

In addition to races, every year Spring Carnival has at least one major comedy

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