OUR ROBOTS
Part of our mission statement is to "help our students develop real world experience and leadership skills by building high functioning competitive robots." Below is an archive of our robots, dating back to our rookie season.
This year’s robot, Maverick, pays tribute to Tom Cruise’s callsign in the hit Top Gun franchise. We chose this name because our robots have what it takes to fly with the best of the best, with Maverick taking off towards the Traversal rung on the climb in each match.
STRATEGY
Maverick was designed to shoot into the upper two point hoop from any of the four flat edges of the central area, allowing him to pick up and shoot cargo quickly while remaining in the center of the field during play time. In addition, Maverick’s climb mechanism allowed him to reach the highest rung, the Traversal, at the end of each match.
DESIGN
Maverick can intake cargo with his ground intake, and his indexing magazine allows him to store two pieces of cargo at once. Mav’s omni-wheel intake allows the driver to quickly acquire cargo from the tarmac. Maverick’s turret-mounted shooter rotates and has an adjustable hood to aid in accurately shooting into the upper hub using a single flywheel shooter. Maverick’s climber is equipped with two stages—one vertical and one rotating—which enable him to climb to the traversal rung of the hangar. Maverick uses a robust swerve drive train, allowing the robot to speed around the field in all directions.
ARTEMIS
2020-2021 / INFINITE RECHARGE
Artemis is named after the Greek goddess of the hunt. For the first true shooting game since 2016, we felt as if naming our robot after a goddess known for her prowess in shooting a bow and arrow was appropriate.
STRATEGY
Artemis was designed to shoot from any legal region on the field, including from behind the trench. This ability gives us flexibility when working with alliance partners, and shortened our cycle time.
DESIGN
Artemis was the first robot we built using NEO motors, as well as a Limelight. Artemis’s drive train includes two custom gearboxes to optimize the gear ratios, and to reduce the weight of the design. The omni-wheel intake allows the driver to rapidly pick up power cells from the widest possible acquisition area behind the robot. The magazine is designed to hold up to 5 power cells in an orderly, evenly spaced path despite asynchronous intaking of power cells from the field. The shooter allows the driver to rapidly fire accurate and consistent shots from nearly anywhere on the field, including a close range shot from the initiation line and a long range shot behind the color wheel. Artemis also has a climber that uses three telescoping square tubes to reach the hook to a maximum height of 75 inches.
ARTEMIS IN ACTION
EVENTS COMPETED AT
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Del Mar Regional
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Central Valley Regional
ONIZUKA
2019 / DESTINATION: DEEP SPACE
Onizuka is named after the astronaut on space shuttle mission STS-
51-L, Ellison Onizuka. Onizuka was the first Asian-American in space, and signifies the strides we made this year in an overhaul of our CAD team. The bot features a fast drive train and an elevator, both of which allow us to efficiently score hatches and cargo on both the cargo ship and the rocket.
STRATEGY
Onizuka is designed to be able to pick up cargo from the ground and hatch panels from the loading. It can place them both on all scoring positions on the field, giving us additional versatility as an alliance partner.
DESIGN
Both game element intakes are on a 2 stage cascaded elevator. The cargo intake utilizes mecanum wheels in order to intake the cargo balls and center them reliably within the intake. The polycarbonate plates as well as the foam lining provide compression in the system to account for variation in cargo diameter. The four-bar linkage pivots the cargo intake between the ground intake position and the eject position. The four-bar provides for a large angular displacement with minimal end effector rotation. The hatch intake consists of a 1’’ width hook that fits with the inner diameter of the hatch panel and clamps it against the back board. Pushers then eject the panel when the hook is released. When placing on the rocket, the backboard is slid forward to compensate for the lack of a rocket bumper cutout. The
hatch mechanism can pivot to stow itself out of the way of the cargo intake.
ONIZUKA IN ACTION
EVENTS COMPETED AT
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San Diego Regional presented by Qualcomm
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Las Vegas Regional
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Houston Championship (Roebling Division) (Finalist)
NEO
2018 / POWER UP
This year’s robot is named Neo, after the main protagonist from the Matrix, the final boss from Final Fantasy V, and the Greek root “neo” for new. As we finished our first decade as a team and head into the next one, Neo served as an exciting reminder to keep looking forward to the new.
STRATEGY
FIRST Power Up is a game that requires maneuverability and a fast drive train. We prioritized scoring via the scale, then scoring via the switch and lastly getting power ups.
DESIGN
Our robot uses an intake arm to take power cubes from all parts of the field and put them on or in the scale, switch and exchange. Neo has a very straight-forward design. We wanted a low center of gravity and used a 9 lb. steel plate at the bottom of the robot. To accommodate for the extra weight we had to design the robot without pneumatics.
NEO IN ACTION
EVENTS COMPETED AT
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San Diego Regional
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Las Vegas Regional
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Houston Championship (Galileo Division)
Kamehameha is our robot for the 2017 game, FIRST Steamworks. As per team tradition, members submitted names, and we voted on them during a Saturday build season lunch. Our robot is named after King Kamehameha, who was the first ruler to unite all of the Hawaiian islands under common leadership. We chose this name because, as our team has grown, we have made it our mission to integrate and unite all of our students together into a team that has become a family.
DESIGN
Kamehameha uses an active gear mechanism that intakes gears from the human loading zone and delivers them to the airship. Debuting at the Las Vegas Regional, Kamehameha can also make use of a newly added ground intake on the opposite side of the robot. Kamehameha can intake fuel from the hoppers and feeds the fuel into a double flywheel shooter that aims for the high-efficiency boiler, and our 6-wheel pneumatic West Coast Drive allows for a sturdy and reliable drive system.
2017 / STEAMWORKS
KAMEHAMEHA
KAMEHAMEHA IN ACTION
EVENTS COMPETED AT
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San Diego Regional
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Las Vegas Regional
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Houston Championship (Roebling Division)
ORION
2016 / STRONGHOLD
Our 2016 robot, Orion, derives its name from the constellation with its iconic belt. Orion was presented with the design challenge of being able to fit under the low bar; to accommodate this, its single fly wheel shooter has the ability to fold down into the base of the robot. To traverse the obstacles that Stronghold provides, Orion drives with a tank drive. Orion’s boulder intake mechanism uses a set of rollers that funnel the boulder towards a teeter-totter, where it rests until shot with the single flywheel or ejected back out through the intake. Due to the need to accommodate twelve-speed while still leaving room for the boulder to rest and shoot, Orion’s electronics panel is U-shaped. Orion’s frame is made up of 90 wall aluminum powder-coated yellow. Our sponsorship panel locks on to the top of the robot and is detachable for the best access to the electronics panel. This panel is made up of our signature carbon fiber, which we have used on every robot since our 2011 build season. Orion’s autonomous allows it to cross through the low bar, in addition to the B and D category defenses. It's lidar and vision processing allow it to shoot through the high goal.
ORION IN ACTION
EVENTS COMPETED AT
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San Diego Regional
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Orange County Regional
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World Championship (Carver Division)
VALKYRIE
2015 / RECYCLE RUSH
Valkyrie, named after a mythological Norse winged creature, is able to manipulate totes and recycling containers. Valkyrie has a welded drive base and “strongback”, welded by students on our team. The drive bases and the “strongback” were also carboned in our shop by students with guidance from some of our mentors. Our “strongback” is coded to automatically tilt to keep the totes parallel to the ground when we intake them. We have “clappers” with intake wheels to help us take totes into the belly of the robot. Our carbon “claw” can pick up containers while making stacks of totes underneath. We decided use an H-drive with omni wheels as our drivetrain, allowing us to drive sideways. Our center wheel in pneumatically suspended giving a constant pressure on the floor while allowing us to drive over the center bump easily. The software on our robot continues to improve each year. This year we have two IMUs (Roll and Yaw), allowing us to measure of of two access points. The first, mounted sideways, measuring the angle at which or strongback is, and the second measures if we are straight.
VALKYRIE IN ACTION
EVENTS COMPETED AT
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Inland Empire Regional
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San Diego Regional
ODIN
2014 / AERIAL ASSIST
Named after the head of the Norse gods, Odin featured a powerful shooter and a fast drivetrain. It accomplished the goal of passing the ball over a center truss to a human player for extra points. Odin made it to Championships in Saint Louis after winning the regional in Las Vegas, and advanced to the semifinals. At the Championship, Odin also was part of the alliance that set the world record playoff score (390 points, unpenalized). Not only was this the first year that we built a second robot for driver practice, but it was also the first year that our team had a mascot.
ODIN IN ACTION
EVENTS COMPETED AT
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San Diego Regional (Finalist)
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Las Vegas Regional (Winners)
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World Championship (Archimedes Division)
SUN TZU
2013 / ULTIMATE ASCENT
Sun Tzu shot frisbees at approximately 40 miles per hour and could complete a ten point climb to finish the match. Equipped with a California Drive and our trademark molded carbon fiber, Sun Tzu brought our team to Championships in St. Louis for the first time. Sun also had a Kinect sensor used to track targets more effectively than normal cameras, and a functioning thirty point climb that was never implemented in competition.
SUN TZU IN ACTION
EVENTS COMPETED AT
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San Diego Regional (Finalist)
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Inland Empire Regional (Winners)
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World Championship (Galileo Division)
YAROSLAV THE WISE
2012 / REBOUND RUMBLE
Yaroslav fired basketballs into hoops using a catapult and finished the match by balancing on a bridge. It's catapult shooting mechanism was unique among its competition. It was also built with a custom gearbox and a camera on the very top in order to detect the hoops. Yaroslav faced off against our school mascot in a basketball shooting competition.
YAROSLAV IN ACTION
EVENTS COMPETED AT
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San Diego Regional
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Las Vegas Regional (Finalist)
2011 / LOGO MOTION
IVAN IV
Ivan picked up inflated tubes using a claw on a vertically extendable shaft. We custom built Ivan’s mecanum wheels to allow for strafing across the field. At the end of the match, we would release a smaller robot named Feodor which would climb up a metal pole as quickly as possible. Ivan was our first robot that incorporated carbon fiber, a material that has since been incorporated into all of our new robots.
YAROSLAV IN ACTION
EVENTS COMPETED AT
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San Diego Regional
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Las Vegas Regional
CIXI
2010 / BREAKAWAY
Cixi used two different air based mechanisms in 2010. It used a vacuum to capture balls and used pneumatics to shoot the balls into the goals. Cixi was named after the Empress Dowager Cixi, and its official theme song is “Don’t Stop Believing” by Journey.
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San Diego Regional
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Las Vegas Regional
EVENTS COMPETED AT
AUTO
2009 / LUNACY
Named after the Warlord Otto Von Bismarck, Auto collected balls off of the floor then shot them through a moving target or dumped them into a trailer. Auto was originally overweight and in order to fix this problem, the team drilled holes into the panels, giving it an appearance similar to Swiss cheese.
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San Diego Regional
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Las Vegas Regional
EVENTS COMPETED AT
XERXES
2008 / OVERDRIVE
Our first robot, Xerxes, was a lap running robot; it would move around the course in order to score points. It was a very simple robot because it did not have many functions. Xerxes originally had a bar on it’s front in order to herd balls, but this broke during our first match.
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San Diego Regional