San Jose for VEX fun? Yes, please!
CANs VEX Win in Seguin!
FIVE of our VEX teams traveled to Seguin for a tournament on Saturday 1/25/2020. The Southwest Robo Showdown was a fantastic venue and was the setting for some thrilling robot action.
Four of our teams advanced to Semifinals. The first Semifinal was oh so close but 2158P and their alliance partner 83009E lost by 3 points. The second Semifinal had the 2158R/2158K alliance facing the alliance with 2158C and 11495B. That match was tied and went to a dramatic rematch where R/K won. In the Final match, the CANs alliance faced the host team alliance, 78155D and 78155C. The Seguin teams started out strong with an autonomous win, but the CANs fought hard and emerged with a 50-46 win for the Tournament Champions trophy.
David, Gretchen, Mauricio, and Eric with the Tournament Champions trophies
2158K also took home the Skills trophy.
Congratulations to all the teams involved, as the tournament was one of great fun and sportsmanship. Looking forward to seeing several of you at the Regional Championship coming up fast!
VEX at MMS Tournament 1.11.20
Murchison Middle School (MMS) is in Anderson High’s vertical team, and their VEX program is where most of our students got their start in robotics. So when they asked us for help in running their hosted tournament, of COURSE we said yes!
Current and alumni members of the ausTIN CANs served in multiple roles, including set up crew, inspection, Skills field manager, the entire referee crew, and clean up. Oh, yeah. We also had 6 VEX teams competing!
It was a long day but worthwhile. Photos below!
This cube counts for style points only!
2158K wins the Skills Champion trophy, presented by Ben Cochran (VEX alum and current FRC member). K was undefeated until the Final, when they lost by ONE POINT. An exciting finish to a long day!
Early morning finishing touches on Set Up. Friday night set up plans were disrupted by a severe weather threat and dedicated teachers/ students arrived at 5 am to prep for doors opening at 7 am Saturday.
As close to a group photo as possible. Prepping for Elimination rounds!
That purple cube landed in the tower at the last second to win this round!
Great to see this wall of Yellow. Alliance partners for Eliminations.
Robot makes stack, then turns unexpectedly such that it knocks over the same stack. Lifeguard chair referee narrowly misses flying cubes, and Head Ref reaction is priceless. (Photographer was intending to simply take a photo of the alliance partners.) :-)
Kickoff to a Great Start!
Kickoff!!
It’s finally here! The day started, like most other teams, with the Rules. How exciting! We were broken up in groups of 4 students and 2 mentors to read the rules. It lasted a bit long but ended just in time for lunch. After lunch, we reconvened to have one member of each group present the groups "5 Takeaways”. A bit was talked about here with things that changed this year compared to previous years. After this, a scoring analysis and objectives list was discussed. Breaking the game objectives into how many points will be gained helped us decide the route we wished to take. During this time, we had also realized that there were plenty of big question marks. The students were split into prototyping groups to get started on the next morning.
Sunday
The first Sunday started pretty strong. Prototyping began and we quickly made a flywheel shooter and a roller intake. We noticed areas that could be improved and quickly iterated these changes. This is the first time in our history where multiple prototypes were on their second or third iteration on the second day of Kickoff. The climber was harder than expected, so we needed more time in the design stage! While these mechanisms were being tested, the CAD team quickly began their work to make a drivebase. By the end of the meeting, two drive rails were ready to be used.
Tuesday
This year, we do not have meetings on Monday or Friday so our next meeting day was Tuesday. During this time, Chairman’s team quickly dove into work creating a near-final outline of the essay. Our programming team drew out a diagram of the subsystems that might appear on the final robot. We talked about the goals for programming, and tasks that need to be done. The programming team is also working on a way to test each subsystem to ensure that everything is in working order before each match. The CAD team was well on the way of finalizing their drive base, little tweaks aside. The next challenge is to figure a way to hold 5 balls in our bot in one go. After throwing 10 ideas around, 4 stuck to the ceiling and neither came back down.
Wednesday
It’s that time of the week! Priority List! We had a total of 12 items on our list, but if only the first 6 are done by our first competition in Del Rio, we are content. We believe these 6 are valuable enough to help us do well at our first event. We decided a stretch goal would be achieving the first 9.
By Wednesday, more Ri3D teams have uploaded their reveal videos and many of these teams have warned about the game pieces. Once two or more power cells are held together in the intake, they are prone to jamming up against each other.
Thursday
This was a part-packed day! Field elements were being popped out of our new router faster than we can assemble. The Generator Switch is halfway done and we still have a pile of parts needing assembly. For manufacturing, the pressure has started. With the remaining drive rails, mistakes were made and lessons were learned. After these parts are completed, more parts need to be pushed from CAD to the manufacturing team. Due to autonomous being back this year, the programming team is excited! Tuesday next week we will be having autonomous palooza, where we brainstorm all the different autonomous modes we might need. CAD has pushed through a lot this year and we are incredibly proud of our students. The communication between CAD and our prototyping groups has allowed our CAD members to alter the sketches as prototyping realizes improvements. This is the first year where we will have custom gearbox plates and we can’t wait!
This weekend the ausTIN CANs are hosting the Anderson HS Qualifier for FLL, and helping out at Murchison Vex tournament. It will be a stretch on the students of the team but I am positive we will make it work!
Austin Tower Takeover II Event
December 14, 2019 found our school cafeteria abuzz with some intense VEX robot action. 36 teams competed and provided fantastic competition for each other.
Congratulations to our winners! Each of these teams qualifies to play at the Region 4 Championship 3/14/2020.
*Tournament Champions:
76513A, “B-Town Engineers” from Belton High School with their partners
78738B, “CAValanche” from Lake Travis High School
*Design Award:
8451D, “The Kombatants” from HARLANDALE ISD STEM ECHS-ALAMO COLLEGES AT PAC
*Robot Skills Champion:
2158K, “ausTIN CANs” from Explorer Post 2158
*Excellence Award - Middle School
83009R, “Krispy Bears” from BAILEY MIDDLE SCHOOL
*Excellence Award - High School
76513A, “B-Town Engineers” from Belton High School
Since 76513A double qualified at this event, the *second place Skills scorer advances to Regionals:
78155C, “STEMatadors-C” from Seguin High School
We look forward to seeing all of you again soon!
A HUGE THANK YOU to all the teams/ mentors/ parents who helped us break down the robot tournament! We are a large high school on a land-locked campus and all the physical space is utilized in multiple ways, often on the same day. On this particular date, another student group was hosting elementary students for a parents night out… less than ONE HOUR after our tournament concluded. With a simple request from the MC, these VEX participants and their Adults (who were all tired from an extended tournament) got busy in a hurry. We likely set a record for stowing 4 fields and all the various parts, including tables and AV equipment. Someone even grabbed a broom and was sweeping up all the rubber band and partial zip tie debris without even being asked. With a quick reset by our dedicated custodial services staff, we had the pleasure of seeing the next group walk into a completely ready space with ten minutes to spare. This is the kind of sportsmanship that VEX teams demonstrate, and it is an awesome thing to witness. Thanks again!
2158K takes home the Skills trophy!
CANman going to SPACE
Our team is continuing the Deep Space theme with Firefly Aerospace!
We are honored to have been selected for participation in the DREAM payload; more to come when we get closer to launch date!
Our 3-D printed Can Man will soon be up in orbit!
VEX tournament hosting success!
Anderson High School was THE place to be on Saturday, October 19, 2019. We hosted the first VEX tournament of the season in our region. Amazing to see so many teams ready so early in the season.
Congratulations to 2158C and 2158B for making it to Eliminations. Team 2158C was defeated by the winners of the tournament and Team 2158B were defeated by the finalists. Both teams gave it their best! Also congrats to Team 354X and Team 26982E for winning the event!
Many thanks to our small army of student and adult volunteers who made the event possible. Anderson has 10 VEX teams this year. Those who were not competing at this event stepped up in so many capacities. Awesome to see this kind of student leadership.
Looking forward to duplicating the process in December!
The setup crew did a great job!
Lunchtime mentorship
