ausTIN CANs

Thanks to everyone who supported the ausTIN CANs throughout the 2012 FRC season! 

ausTIN CANs, team 2158, was mentioned during the FRC Championship Opening Ceremonies. Ray Hsu, K-12 Program Manager at National Instruments, talked about the team’s involvement in designing a better knee brace. Popular Mechanics interviewed the team about this special project while at Championships. Check out the article HERE!

The team had a great time competing and, despite some technical problems along the way, was also recognized  with some surprise Championship hardware – the Galileo Division Coopertition Award! ausTIN CANs also made some great new friends. The team is so grateful to have had the chance to compete at Championships for the first time since 2007. We look forward to hopefully earning our way back next season! But for now, it’s off-season time! We hope to see you all at Texas Robot Roundup this summer!

We leave in one week for the FRC World Championships in St. Louis! As of right now everything is almost done, we have made improvements to the shooter mechanism on the robot. We have also made improvements to the website as you can see, and we have also maximized our spirit items for worlds as well! So wish us luck as we leave for worlds next week!

The 2nd Annual Texas Robot Roundup will be taking place at Anderson High School on Saturday, July 28th. Teams from all around Texas and beyond will be coming together this summer to compete in the Austin during the off-Season, playing the 2012 FIRST Robotics Competition game, Rebound Rumble. Registration for teams and volunteers is now open! Click HERE for event details and registration.

Stay tuned for more information!

Since you last heard from us, you heard that we won the chairman’s award at the Alamo regional in San Antonio! Right now we are preparing for world championships in St. Louis, we have redesigned our shooter mechanism,  We are also reworking our programing for the robot, as well as working on the website. We are also working on spirit things for our pit at championships as well. Such as making 2,500 buttons  to give out to people at St. Louis! next time you hear from us we will probably be in St. Louis competing, so wish us luck!

Last weekend our team came home with four prestigious awards from the FIRST^TM 
Robotics Competition (FRC) Alamo Regionals in San Antonio.

On Friday evening, our Head Mentor David Yanoshak, received the Woodie
Flowers Mentor of the Year award. This award recognizes mentors who lead,
inspire, and empower using excellent communication skills – the nominee
is chosen by the team members and they are the ones who submitted the
application. Our students wrote an essay about how David has given them the
best understanding of the challenges, opportunities, and satisfaction involved in
the discipline of engineering and design.

Also on Friday, Jess Jankowitsch, our Lead Communications/Marketing Mentor,
received the FRC Outstanding Volunteer of the Year award! This award is
presented to one individual who consistently excels in her efforts with proven
results in the areas of positive impact in our region supporting FIRST‘s mission,
leadership, personal commitment, community involvement and length of service.
We all know Jess embodies all of this and more!

On Saturday senior Nate McLauchlan was awarded the FIRST Dean’s List
Award. This award goes to an individual team member who has demonstrated
leadership and commitment to the ideals of FIRST, an interest in and passion for
a long term commitment to FIRST and its ideals, overall individual contribution
to his team, technical expertise and passion, entrepreneurship and creativity,
ability to motivate and lead fellow team members, and effectiveness at increasing
awareness of FIRST in his school and community.

And finally, our Team received the coveted Chairman’s Award. FIRST created
this award to keep the central focus of FRC on their ultimate goal of transforming
our culture in ways that will inspire greater levels of respect and honor for
science and technology, as well as encourage more of today’s youth to become
scientists, engineers, and technologists. The Chairman’s Award represents the
spirit of FIRST. It honors the team that, in the judges’ estimation, best represents
a model for other teams to emulate, and which embodies the goals and purpose
of FIRST. It remains FIRST’s most prestigious award, and the Team worked very
hard writing a stellar executive summary and producing a powerful video which
can be seen here.

As a result of all their hard work, our Team will be traveling to St. Louis April 25-
28 for the 2012 FIRST Championship at the Edward Jones Dome, St. Louis,
Missouri.

3, 2, 1… GO! With the push of a button electromechanical wonders are unleashed. ROBOTS!! Students experience the thrill of mastering basic concepts in robotics, computer programming, and mechanical design while solving challenging problems.

What:

• 4 days of robotics summer camps for students 11 to 17 years old! 
• Campers get to work with VEX & FTC.
• Parents are invited for an end of camp presentation and competition.

Where:

• Anderson High School
• 8401 Mesa Drive, Austin, TX 78759

When: 

• 8:30am -4:30pm (late pick-up available)
• Session dates awaiting approval – please check back!

Cost:

• $240
• This is a fundraiser for the Anderson Robotics Program.
• Snacks and camp t-shirt included

Additional information on registering coming soon!

Over this weekend we hosted the Austin Robot Roundup and an FTC qualifier event.  Team 2789 from Manor New Tech and Team 418 from LASA High School helped us to build field components and set up the field.  Eight FRC teams from all over Texas, including a rookie team all the way from Edinburgh, came to test out their robot designs on a practice field and get help from veteran teams. While the FRC teams were practicing, the FTC qualifier event was in full swing.  Twenty-five teams showed up for the qualifier, including six of  from Anderson HS. Three of our teams made the cut and are moving on to the San Antonio regional. One of our FTC teams was recognized with the Think Award.

We are grateful of all the support that you people are giving us with the website as you can see now it is almost fully operational. With your support of course, we are super excited about how far we have come with the website. We are hoping to win several awards for this website!

Thanks again!

ausTIN CANs!

So one week from tuesday we will have to be done with the robot to start with our competitions. So wish us luck with our build we will be keeping you updated on how  the robot and the team are doing.

So today’s meeting (Saturdays are always the team’s longest meetings of our week – 6 hours!), we decided to SUGAR up! We encouraged everyone to bring their favorite cereal and it was a hit! We ate almost 10 boxes of cereal. However, it was soon back to business as usual. We are now still working on the website, we are finishing up our final CAD ( computer aided design) to help us visualize what the robot will look like, and working on a bunch more projects too. We also finished the new design for our mascot; he looks even more like a CAN then ever before. Thanks for all your support of the team! Come back everyday for updates on how the robot and the team are doing!

THANKS!

ausTIN CANs