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We go to Austin Academy, a magnet
school for gifted and talented sixth, seventh, and eighth
graders. Austin Academy was founded as a gifted and talented
magnet school in 1987. Students live in Garland, Rowlett and
Sachse. The faculty has high standards and encourages us to
participate in advanced academic classes and fine arts
programs.
One of these courses, for seventh and
eighth grade students, is Special Topics in Science. The
fall semester of this class is Robotics. At the end of sixth
and seventh grade, we apply to be in the Special Topics
class the following year. The current robotics team members
interview applicants to determine if they show an interest
and commitment to the Robotics Team and BEST Competition.
Our team, S.O.A.P.
(Students Operating Advanced Prototypes), consists of
29 eighth graders and 12
seventh graders, separated into two classes. Each
class has students from both grades.
We cannot complete all of the work
during class so we come before school, after school, and on
Saturdays for three hours between 9:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m.
Everyone has a job and participates. Our evening work groups
overlap from one day to the next to insure there is always
one student who is there from each class to share what
happened the previous evening. We also keep a project log to
help us remember details.
We are divided into specialty teams to
satisfy certain requirements of the BEST Award :
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Website Design: This specialty team
makes the website, each year making improvements to the
lasts.
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Project Display: This team Works on
the booth we exhibit at the Dallas and Texas BEST
competitions
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Project Notebook: Works on the
process notebook required for the BEST Award
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Team Spirit: Makes the buttons
and other team spirit paraphernalia used at the Dallas and
Texas BEST competitions and spearhead the Team Spirit
efforts at those competitions
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Community Involvement:
Co-ordinates the team's involvement in elementary school
fairs, and the Elementary Day event for fifth graders from
Walnut Glen and Kimberlin
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AutoDesk Inventor: Works on CAD
drawings used in the process notebook and the website, and
used as a reference by the engineers, students, coaches,
etc.
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VeX Challenge: Our newest
specialty team (replacing LEGO Robotics for the first time
this year), they make a model of the robot using the VeX
Robotics system
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