• Glad to be meeting in person during these difficult times. (With safety precautions, of course:)
• Currently working on our 2020 robot’s code, and improving our off season robot.
• Still accepting new members who are interested, including some of our SWARM buddies! Join our family of fun Wednesdays 6-8 at the back of the high school. Wear a mask!
• The Scalawags are proud to say we are still growing our Jr Robotics Club! 4-7th graders interested in science, technology, engineering, math should come join us on Dec 5th 2020 for some fun challenges.
• We still hope to find a permanent home, and always accepting new sponsors!
• Keep up with the Scalawags by following our social medias! Instagram: @scalawags1359
  Facebook: FIRST Robotics Team 1359

Like all FIRST teams everywhere, the Scalawags are just waiting until we can be together again. We really miss our shop, our time together, and our robots. The team also wants to thank our sponsors for their continued support – several have reached out to us in our time of quarantine and had words of wisdom and comfort.

We are trying to keep things moving through virtual meetings and projects we can all work on at home like updating the Business Plan, designing a float for this summer’s Strawberry Festival Parade, and coming up with socially distant fundraising ideas. Stay tuned for lots of cool stuff, just as soon as we can leave the house safely!

The Scalawags are still slaving away on their latest masterpiece. Annie Snoakley has been a demanding mistress, but the team feels like they are finally getting a handle on her. After 2 weeks of liposuction, she is a slim and trim 125#. It’s a good thing, too, because there’s not many more places to drill a hole or lighten a bracket! Shout out to our local vet clinic, Faithful Friends, for making their scale available to us. That’s “weigh” easier for figuring out how much more she needs to lose!

Programming is continuing to debug and test. Team 1359 had really hoped to get some driving practice in before we left for our first event on Friday, but it was not meant to be! Instead, we’ll be running by the seat of our pants, learning as we go. Scrappy pirates like ourselves never shy away from a challenge such as that, and the team is excited about getting her out on the field.

The Scalawags will be competing in Auburn, WA, this weekend. We will post links to the twitch channel on our social media as soon as we know it. Tune in and cheer us on! It’s a little nerve wracking to be going so far away – we’ll be the only Oregon team there – but we are excited to reconnect with teams we don’t see often, and make some new friends while we’re at it! ARRRRRGH!

• 

• 

• 

• 

The team worked late on Valentine’s Day night – after a hearty dinner of nachos – to get the robot put together for Scrimmage the next day. All her parts and pieces came together… and most importantly, she gained a name. We are pleased to introduce Annie Snoakley. She was named for legendary sharp shooter Annie Oakley – continuing our recent tradition of borrowing the names of strong women – and Star Wars Supreme Leader Snoke – because some days you need just a hint of the Dark Side to get things done.

• 

It took us until early afternoon, but we did get the robot on the field for Scrimmage this year! We were not able to test the ball handling system, but we learned that our motors were pretty peppy. So peppy, in fact, that she tipped on her first outing when Jo tried to change directions too quickly.

• 

• 

• 

She mostly passed inspection… except for the pesky 20 pounds she will have to lose in the next few weeks. Looks like it’s celery and aerobics for Annie! We are hoping to get her slimmed down and shooting properly before next Sunday, when we have an opportunity for another informal scrimmage at DW Fritz’s practice field in Wilsonville. The team spent their President’s Day debugging the code, swapping out motors and gearboxes, and reworking our bumpers. All in a day’s work!

As we cruise into the 5th week of Build Season, we are starting to see what looks like a robot! She is taking shape nicely, and the team is working extra hours this week in the hope that we will have a functioning robot by Saturday’s scrimmage at Corvallis High School. Subsystems are being placed, and electronics are going in!

• 

• 

The art team is creating to their heart’s content, and the stuff they are putting together is pretty cool. Ships, asteroids, cities and control panels, they’ve got it all! Buttons are being stock piled, and we have a cool idea for some limited edition buttons… stay tuned on that one.

• 

• 

Finally, a shout out to the Mom Squad, who have continued with concessions during Build Season, while the kids are busy building a robot. You ladies are the best nacho slingers around and we love you!

Time flies when you’re having fun! Here we are at the end of Week 3 and there’s lots of progress to show for it!

We are super excited to start putting subsystems on the frame and see how she looks! Check out our social media for more updates!

The Scalawags have been hard at work in the shop since we watched the Kick Off video and received our kit of parts in Early January. At the end of our second week, we are well on our way! The fabricators started welding the frame today. Subsystems to handle the power cells, and shoot them at the target are in the final stages of prototyping. Programmers are using their test board to check their work, and the art team has already created an awesome replica of First City. All in all, we’ve been a very busy band of pirates.

(If you missed the kick off video, you can see what obstacles we have to overcome here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmiYWTmFRVE)