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Build Season Begins

Ghost Written by Bucko Briiz and the Orange Man

This year, the game is “Crescendo.” We have to build a robot to pick up the game piece, which is an orange foam ring, called a note. The robot needs to be able to pick up the rings, which are scattered around the field or obtained from a human player. The human player then loads a game piece through a chute, dropping it on the floor or going directly into a robot. The robot then is to either launch it into the speaker or put it into the amp. The speaker is essentially the main goal, score points here by launching the ring into the opening. Place a note into the amp to “Amplify” the speaker, scoring extra points for a brief duration of time.

Now, what has the team been up to? Well, to start, after kick-off, we sat down as a team to begin brainstorming possible ideas for our robot. For the next few days, we continued brainstorming until we had a general idea for our robot. After we had our ideas, we broke off into subgroups to plan the different parts of the robot. Upon reaching a conclusion, we began prototyping. However, we were interrupted by a huge ice storm, costing us 24 hours that we could’ve been working in the shop. Luckily, half the team met in Zoom to plan what we would do after the ice melted. When we returned to the shop, we continued prototyping and started working on the base. We finished the base and made a functioning prototype of the shooter. We are still prototyping intake as of now.

Build-A-Thon

Kickoff is just around the corner, no time like the present to show your support! We will be hosting a Build-A-Thon where you can pledge support to a team member, by doing so you agree to donate a specific amount of money per hour the team member works, or you could make a flat donation, anything helps! We estimate needing $150 per student including things such as travel and hotel rooms, and this is just for the first two competitions, we need more if we make it to districts.

Girls Generation 2023

The Scalawags competed in Girls Gen at Wilsonville October 7th, going in Clawdia’s arm was inoperable due to some bugs we have been yet to fix. Despite this setback our drive team were up to the challenge, ending up one of the top 4 teams after qualifiers. Our drive team didn’t stop there, getting all the way to the finals with the alliance we chose as the rest of the team cheered them on as loud as they could. In the second round of finals Clawdia took a hit and was taken out of commission for that and the next round, after this the Scalawags were unable to take first place. The drive team got the Scalawags to a second place trophy despite how much of a handicap was placed onto Clawdia without her arm, and everything we as a team learned will be essential in building next years robot.

Scalawags 2024 budget

Our projected 2024 budget is $29,000, with this thermometer graphic showing our progress to fundraise that amount. Throughout the summer the team has been hard at work at fundraisers and community outreach events to raise this money before 2024 kickoffs. We have been doing car washes, fairs, talking to possible sponsors and working with some amazing people with this goal in mind.

Clackamas Academy Competition 2023

This past March 2-4th, went up to Clackamas for a riveting competition! We struggled to get our sea legs out from under us and effectively move field pieces. Yet in typical Scalawag Spirit we cheered on ourselves and others, and received the Spirit Award! We learned and grew (and danced the YMCA a lot), and are currently working on improving our original design to bring to the Salem Competition this coming March 23-25th!

Thank you to our sponsors for charging us up!
1359’s President working hard to ensure our robot is ready for the match.
Our drive team working together to problem solve on the field!
Our technician showing some love to the Scalawags cheering them on from the stands!

What we’ve been working…

The Team has been hard at work building a robot this season. As of right now, our new flagship has its frame, arm our grabber. Right no built our main obstacles are programming portion, and jamming all of our components in our small frame. The scalawags might make history by giving our programmers a working prototype before scrimmage in Corvallis.

The team discussing ways to use the space on the robot.

On Martin Luther king jr. day, the Scalawags continued the annual tradition of going around the high school and cleaning up trash. We have been making an effort to be more sustainable from seasons past, by using then washing, cups, plates, and cutlery.

Ghost written by a Ghost writer.

Massive Catch Up!

We have been away from the website updates for too long! Needless to say, we’ve been busy. Over the summer, the team ran car washes, can drives, and concessions on our local train line to bring in funds for the 2023 season. We also added many new members to our rank – including two new mentors! (Well, they’ve been lurking as parents for a while, but now they HAVE to hang out with us!) The team was also honored to be chosen as the Grand Marshal for the Twilight Holiday Parade here in Lebanon. Creating a 30 foot float with moving skeletons on vacation was a great way to build skills for our new members. Winning the Santa’s Choice award was icing on the cake!

The biggest news, of course, is our 2023 Build Season! We received our new challenge this past Saturday, and the team has been hard at work brainstorming ever since. If you missed the reveal, you can check out the game here . Charged Up is going to be a fast game with an unbalanced ending!

9/21/22 pirate update!

Pirate Ghostwriter

Hello!

We have some fun things to update you on. We have got our swerve drive built and are in the process of getting it put into a frame. We will be practicing with it when we finish the frame and coding so our drive team can gain experience with it. We have NEW members. Our team is up to 22 members now which is super exciting. We have done some fundraisers recently like car washes in the Lebanon High School parking lot and sold popcorn on the Santiam Excursion Train. We went to the Art and Air Festival in Albany with SWARM (957) which was a lot of fun. We were happy that we got invited to go with them. THANKS SWARM !

Welcome Aboard!

In June, the Scalawags opened the doors of their shop to the community and prospective crew members. We were thrilled to have a good showing – including to alumni who dropped in to see what we’ve been up to! It was extra special to see those who have moved from the team to the “real world” talking with students thinking of joining us.

While our guests milled around and talked to everyone, we were still working on our swerve drive construction, writing code for that drive, and driving our 2022 ‘bot, Amelia. If you missed the open house, but would like to see what we’re all about, stop in and see us some time. We work most Wednesdays from 6:30 – 8 in our shop in the 700s building at the back of the LHS campus.