Cansat is an Aerospace system which is specially used for Educational and Research based goals. Cansat is made up of two words, Can referring to a Soda Can and Sat as short form of Satellite. Cansat, in fact can be considered as a tiny satellite with simple missions in order to be producible in an academic environment, with this difference that it is released and recovered from an altitude of about some hundred meters. However, this distance seems enough for the cansat to operate the mission like real functional satellite missions.
*Picture: http://hakenberg.de/automation/cansat.htm

The CanSat competition is an annual student design-build-launch competition organized by the American Astronautical Society (AAS) and the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA).  The competition features sponsors including NASA and Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp.