Adventures of Week 2 and 3!

We are back, have you missed us? (Bet you did)

Today's blog will be recapping weeks 2 and 3! Lots have been happening and competitions are nearing, and we simply can’t wait to tell you about our progress!

First and foremost, Business. For week 3, our team member Gavin has continuously been working on the podcast. We already have a rough draft of what it's going to be like. Other than our podcast, the business team has been working on videography, and social media and finishing up our essays as of impact and woodies. We have already gotten our nominee for the 2023 season( nobody but the business team knows haha). We also have been keeping up with designing our billboard to bring more people into the world of FRC and VEX! Our graphic designers are working on our shirts for this season as well as getting quotes from companies. Looking for new sponsors. The leads of outreach have been focusing on keeping others of FRC with events, such as the upcoming FLL event! The one and only button teens have started making pins. The photographer will always have the same never ending job of taking photos, without them I wouldn’t be able to shower y'all without wonderful photos and the progress of our team!

Programming on the other hand has been working on a new scouting app for the team. This would make organizing, and analyzing other teams to strategize later games easier for our team. they also have worked on building codes for both intake and floor anticipated food intake mechanisms. Following with developing code for buddy intake. As for other objectives they've been working like swerve-auton, arm system, and arm logging. They have continued to work on this for the last two weeks.

Meanwhile, manufacturing has already assembled the majority of the field and grid. Now, they have started working on a charging station and made parts for prototyping. They continue this for most of week 2. In week three, they were ready to begin assembling the charging station for the 2023 game. Continues making parts for prototyping with the help of cad. Manufacturing has also been teaching routers and HASS.

Speaking of CAD, they have also been busy. Operating with both manufacturing & programming to get their main objectives done. They have got the dual roller prototype complete, as well as the majority of prototypes for the prototype intake. They have combined both the dual-roller and weed-wrecker in-take onto the robot. Following week three, they progressed to floor intake prototyping. CAD has moved on to prototyping with this season's games charge station. With this, our robot can now hold cannoli! They still proceed to work and do a great job. Can't wait to see what else happens in the future!

Moving on from what the subgroups have been doing, our team leads keep updating us with things to keep the team on track. Our scouting team has also begun meeting to plan everything for this year's competitions. The drive team has also continually trained and worked hard.

With this, my recap has come to an end. The team has progressed so much in the past weeks. It's all been such an experience. With every day passing by, competitions only seem to be getting closer. I am going through a roller coaster of emotions. How about you? I am so excited to tell you more about the wonders of the ausTIN CANs, but for now.. you will have to wait! Talk to you guys next time with the…..

THE AUSTIN CANS!!!!!!!!!!!

The Adventures of Week One!

Hello everyone, and welcome back! In today's blog, I’ll be recapping week one and two following Saturday’s kick-off, and sharing our progress along the way!

Starting with Business: we have been working on catching up with deadlines and socializing. Previously we had “CAN Talks”, where our team brought a special guest that specializes in STEM. Now, our team has begun planning our very first podcast “CAN We Talk?”, hosted by the one and only Gavin S. With this our host Gavin will be interviewing a special guest every new episode to talk about everything and anything in the world of STEM & FRC. Now I know what you might be asking: “When is this going to be out? I need more info about my favorite robotics team!” Well, I’m glad you asked, hopefully sometime in February. So stay tuned!!

Overall Business is nonstop working, always bombarded with work to get done: Keeping people with outreach hours or just catching deadlines. Blogging and finishing up essays for when competitions start, and so much more to come in the future!

Meanwhile, CAD has been prototyping intake, focusing on designing claws and rollers. They have also been working on buddy balance, and forklifts. Cad’s been working on working out sideways moving and much more involving the robot.

Manufacturing on the other hand has made it a priority to finish up the field as soon as they can! Cutting up the majority of the necessary parts of community so that they can start assembling everything involving the field.

Programming has also been busy; working on April tags to help the robot with the main objectives of this year's game. Also working on the 2023 updates for this season. Making amazing progress with battery testing and data logging.

Generally, the whole team has been busy. All four subgroups focused and getting everything done. We’re all off to such a great start and can’t wait for the season to start. Outside of our subgroups, the AusTin Cans have also been focusing on scouting and plans for when competitions finally begin. Our drive team has been committed to practicing and preparing themselves for when on the field. The amazing leads have also been keeping us up to date on everything that’s been happening, and the progress of every subgroup.

In the end, everyone’s been doing great. It’s amazing to see everyone having fun and being so committed to the team. We hope to tell you more, but you simply just got to wait,

And with that, the ausTIN CANs will take their leave, but this isn’t the end!

Soon to be continued…..

the ausTIN CANs KICKOFF 2023!

Finally… The 2023 build season has begun, the exciting celebration to welcome a new year, & a new season. Everyone works together to create a great environment & enjoyable time. My very first time experiencing something like this, and to say the least, it was great.

“CHARGED UP" is the name of the 2023 game! The game consists of two alliances of three teams who compete to score cubes and cones into their grids to CHARGE UP their communities.

After hearing the big news of how the new games will be this year, without wasting any time, they divided us into groups, about seven. We all started by pointing out what was most important about the evergreen rules and new ones. We then had to go through the very excruciating test to determine whether we knew our rules well. We then got to theorizing and strategizing our idea's. Following every hour, we all met back up to share what we had discussed regarding score-taking, methods, and strategies. After spending the majority of day talking, strategizing, and finishing up the main objective, day one had come to an end. On day two, the team focused on must-do's, could-do's, and won't- do's of the season.

A while after we all had discussed everything as a group, everybody divided to continue working in their subgroups. Most of the CAD, programming, and manufacturing teams had been there to discuss various ways to make prototypes and designs for the robot. We were all over the place. Members of programming got straight to working on code for the new robot. Business got to work on writing essays, social media, graphic design and blogging (could you have guessed?), and planning. Meanwhile, the others were designing and theorizing things for the robot.

Other members were in the shop, manufacturing those ideas into reality!

Focusing on building the ideas & prototypes to see what could be changed or better. Our team also started making a version of the field for this season.

And with that, the kickoff of the 2023 build season has come to a wrap. There’s so much to come, and I can’t wait to see where this carries us. I wish us and everybody in first the best of luck, see you soon on….

THE AUSTIN CANS!

Swerve Drive Now Available!

Hey fellas and fellers!

As of now, our brand new swerve drive, which we’ve been working on for a while, is available for public viewing and use! Linked below, you’ll find the 400 megabyte (…wow…) file that contains all the inner workings of our swerve modules.

ausTIN CANs, roll out!

Night of the Robots Recap

Welcome back to the blog!

Last weekend, we celebrated our first Night of the Robots event of the year. Kids in K-5th grade from all around the Austin area gathered and intermingled to discover their passion for STEM while having lots of fun along the way. With stations from robot demos to arts and crafts, children were able to find an event that entertained them no matter their interests.

When the Night-of-the-Robotees arrived, we gave them some time to socialize and connect if they knew each other from school. We provided pizza courtesy of Domino’s and fed them to ensure that the kiddos had enough energy to do the rigorous activities to come.

After that, they went to their first activity, which varied based on which group they were in. Kids that went to do physical activity played small games of Simon Says and Captain’s Coming to get them a little more calmed down. This prepared them for the Lego station where they got the chance to build and manufacture some of their own creations through Legos that represented individual pieces of a robot or other built project.

Then, they got the chance to use electricity in practice, using electrical sets to simulate how engineers manage their way around wires to create functional machines. They also got the chance to practice coding logic in a board game that used simple instructions to control a turtle on a board game. Although rudimentary, this showed them how logic is usually the majority of the hard work in programming.

The kids got even more activity with our robot demos, which got to show off the functionality of our robot through a fun game of dodgeball. After dodgeball, they got to hang out and do arts and crafts on our paper pumpkins that they got to take home. This gave them the chance to chill and hang out before ending the event by watching some movies out on the big screen.

Overall, Night of the Robots was a great event to spread the name of STEM across our youngsters in our area. We hope that we could inspire some of the attendees to reach out into the fields of engineering and maybe even join a robotics team once they get to high school.

See you next time on… the ausTIN CANs!

Shaking off Rust and Adding New Parts

Already back at this keyboard? Crap.

Hey everyone! Today’s a very special day: it marks the first real day of work! Alright, alright, hold your applause; it had to happen some day. However, this also signals a major shift in the functioning of this team. Today, we come out of idle “Summer Mode” and turn on the jets of getting stuff done. We have the honor of welcoming about 40 new students to our team, alongside the 20 now seniors, juniors, or sophomores from last year. In fact, this is the largest the team has been since its inception in 2007! We are more than delighted to have all of these dedicated, or, “dedicating” students on our team.
Fall Training started a few weeks ago, and although the veterans likely deny it, it was as useful to them as it was to the newbies. For many returning students, these introductory weeks have allowed for a reinvigoration for their love of robotics and STEM. With programming-, manufacturing-, business-, and CAD-related stations, every subgroup member, new and old, got the chance to define what made their love of robotics.
Veterans weren’t the only ones that benefitted, though. Our new recruits, which almost outnumber our returning students, also got the chance to explore their extracurricular interests during Fall Training. After all of our rotations finished, they got the chance to nominate themselves for whatever subgroup game them the most invigorating experiences or demos. While business and CAD only gained about 25% of their original occupancy, manufacturing and programming’s numbers absolutely shot up with the presence of the new members, almost doubling the amount of members in each.
Overall, although the end of summer and the start of a new season means getting the team up and running, we couldn’t be happier with the struggle. Eventually, our veteran members will return back to our prime, and the new members will be at or surpassing the level that we were at last year— and we’re going to bring you along every step of the journey.
And with that, I’ll have to bid you adieu, reader. See you next time on…

the ausTIN CANs!

Final Recap

Greetings, humans!

Hey everyone! In this post I’ll recap some of the things we want to do, some of the things we are doing, and some of the things we need to do.

• First: experience from competition. Competition taught us numerous things, such as how important swerve drive is for motion around the field. Therefore, we’ve already started putting steps forward to incorporating a swerve drive and starting to learn how to use it.

• Next: some events coming up. Our banquet, which celebrates our team and its numerous members, is coming up. This, alongside a team building exercise, will help to bring our team together.

• Also: another night of the robots event is coming up, allowing us the privilege to get to teach young minds in STEM while also having a blast enjoying movies, games, and more.

• One more: outreach events teaching members of the community about STEM, robotics, and our team, will be held across the summer to expand our impact and broaden our horizons.

• Finally: Fall training starts as soon as Summer ends, giving students coming into Anderson the opportunity to see the robotics team in action and learn valuable skills for the rest of the season.

With that, our season has come to an end, but the action never stops. I’ve had a blast writing these blog posts and I hope to see you next year!

See you next time on… THE AUSTIN CANS!!!!!!!!!!!