#cmucarnival

Carnival in a university?! Yes, there's an annual spring carnival at CMU! Normally it's in April when it's getting warmer and before the finals since many students participate to make this event successful (you'll see what I mean later in the post). But it's not the general carnival we know, no parades and no costumes. Sounds boring without these? Well, it's still fun and unique in it's way :) This year is the 100th year of the carnival, but I don't think they make the event any bigger than before. Besides the activities I will later talk about in the post, there are many events involving alumni (of departments, of student clubs or of fraternities/sororities) reunions. Some had special meal plans, some presented talks and some organized awarding ceremonies etc.

The carnival kicked-off from Friday and there was a free all-campus BBQ with hamburgers and hot dogs. (yay! free food!) In the evening, there was a small concert. Artists this year are Icona Pop and Mac Miller. Before they performed, the students were already 'crazily' dancing and jumping with music! (there even were two guys wore only a thong, ew!) We only stayed for the performance of Icona Pop since we only know their most famous hit: I love it! :P

I actually got to see them only from this photo (am too short >"< ).

One of the biggest events during the carnival is the big fair. A part of the fair contained rides and games mainly for kids and the other part were themed houses made by student groups. It seems that most themes were based on well-known movies/TV like The Simpsons, Pirates of the Caribbean, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Batman, Despicable Me and so on. Can you recognize the movies from the following photos?

Some even have interactions with the visitors (like us): when you go to the second floor of the one based on Monster's University, you are invited to a room to test if you can become a scarer: by scaring a child (not real of course :P). Among the houses, I especially liked the one made from Taiwanese students' association: Miyazaki Films. Not because I'm Taiwanese, but really they made you feel you are in a Miyazaki film. You can have a look in the whole house from a video they made here. I overheard that students drew their plans before Christmas and made all these in like two weeks before the carnival. Most of them really did a great neat job! We had much fun visiting each house :)

The BIGGEST event during the carnival is definitely the Buggy Race! It's a team of 5 and a small girl who build and race composite vehicles. The 5 people push the vehicles when the course is uphill, and the small girl inside pilots it when it's going downhill. The speed of these vehicles can reach up to 40miles/hr! Bob made a video from different parts of the course and from different teams in a previous post. You can see that at the 'chute' (the end of the downhill part where a sharp turn occurs) it's not easy to control the vehicles at such high speed and not every team could make a successful turn. It was really an exciting and intense race!!

It was really a fun carnival!! We'll definitely join again next year!! :)

Somebody brought the three mascots of CMU: Scotties!! They are so cute! (and they are mother, daughter and son)