In the rearview mirror...
The Mechanical Minks (known as the Cyborg Ferrets prior to the 2018-2019 ROVER RUCKUS season) have been turning out robots since the 2013-2014 BLOCK PARTY! season. In some years there were enough participants to field two teams (the second team has been known as FTC 8934).
2022-2023 Power Play
TBD...
2021-2022 Freight Frenzy
During the year of freight frenzy we made 2 chassis. One of the chassis was a small mecanum chassis that allowed us to move around the barriers. The other chassis was a 6 wheel chassis powered by 4 motors that allowed us to easily move over the barriers from any angle. We made an arm that had a spring attached to the back of it that acted as a counter weight for the arm. By adding this spring, the arm would be able to hold its position and raise more easily.
We also made an abundance of 3D printed parts that were used on and off of the robot. We custom made our own carousel spinner with a 3D printed base that had a spring to allow the spinner to be at any position. The 3D printed part of the spinner had a spot to attach a servo off of the robot while still being able to move on its own. We had a base screw that slid into the 3D printed part that held the spinner closer to the chassis to make sure that the chassis would fit within the 18 inch cube. Once pressed in the screw would drop and extend on a spring to allow it to adjust depending on where the robot was.
During the freight frenzy year we had a total of 17 members during meetings. We always had at least 10 going to each competition. Throughout the year we had to adapt to COVID-19 to be able to have community outreach. Because of this, we met with people over Zoom to learn more about what they were doing and how what they do connects to STEM.
2020-2021 Ultimate Goal
TBD...
2019-2020 Skystone
Throughout the 2019-2020 season the team is doing even better; our two league competitions were very successful with a 3 out of 5 and a 4 out of 5 win ratio. At the Interleague competition, we had some difficult matches and some struggling alliance partners. We helped our alliance partners as much as we could, and the robot was very sound, never needing repair. Our hard work on community outreach and the engineering notebook paid off. The team won the Motivate Award and a 3rd Place Inspires Award. We were also invited onto the 4th Alliance with a team we had paired very well with. The team qualified for the State Championship through the 3rd place Inspires Award..
2018-2019 Rover Ruckus
The 2018-2019 season was an amazing season for the team; they won the Think Award at the Pasteur Interleague as well as coming in 9th in the competition, advanced to the Washington State Championship where they placed 8th in Robot Game and 2nd in Think Award. We finished off our season with an unantici trip to the House World Championships. We placed 64th out of 180 teams in their division. Although we didn’t bring home awards, it was an exciting opportunity and a very educational experience for all involved.
2017-2018 Relic Recovery
For the 2017-2018 season, the team started to build up some steam again with returning members who had experience on the team already. They came in sixth at the Pasteur Interleague, but did not make it to the State Championship, so they tried the Victoria, B.C. regional where they did extremely well, being the 2nd alliance team captain. They also enjoyed helping a lot of new rookie teams at the Victoria competition.
2016-2017 Velocity Vortex
This season once again saw almost entirely new members for Team 7198, though several of those new members had been on the other Anacortes FTC Team 8934, which had been made up of middle school students. The team worked hard that year and did well at Interleagues. They were invited to the fourth alliance but did not move on.
2015-2016 FIRST Res-Q
During the FIRST Res-Q season, Team 7198 got entirely new members, but they still did very well at leagues and Interleagues, becoming an alliance captain at the Interleague competition. Unfortunately, we did not move on, but most of the students who had been on the team that year went on to join the FRC team and do quite well.
2014-2015 Cascade Effect
The season was an amazing year for 7198, as they won their Interleague Competition and the Washington State Championship, going on to compete at the Super Regionals in Oakland, CA.
Established 2013 - Block Party!
In 2013, the Anacortes FRC Team leadership decided to start an FTC team because the FRC team had grown very large. Approximately twenty students joined the team that year, and the team did okay at competition, but not great.