How We Make Our Robot

Every robot starts in Solidworks. We work from template parts or model our own, and the design is arguably the longest stage of the season — which is why it is the one the whole team has to carry together.

Code is designed alongside the parts in Java, so a model that cannot be wired or driven is caught at the sketch rather than in the pit.

The shop is where the drawings become parts. Mechanical members machine on industrial-grade equipment — the water jet, the mill and the band saw — to tolerances a hand tool cannot hold.

Everything off the machines is checked against the model before it goes near the robot, because a part that is wrong here is wrong in every stage after it.

While mechanical is cutting, electrical is already building the nervous system: power distribution, battery packs, signal wiring and the sensor placement the robot reads the field with.

The harness is planned rather than improvised, so a fault can still be traced end to end between matches, with the clocks running.

The stages converge here. Subteams bring finished parts to the chassis, and electrical lays the wiring in as mechanical closes the frame — the robot stops being a pile of drawings.

This is also where the first real compromises are made: what fits, what has to move, and what gets redesigned by tomorrow.

Programming starts before the robot exists. The team writes new subsystems for the year's game, re-uses what past seasons already proved, and builds the autonomous routines and operator interface around both.

Code is functionally complete before it is ever pushed to the robot, and then tested until the behaviour on the field matches the behaviour on the laptop.

Testing is its own stage, not a step at the end of the others. Practice runs are logged, the diagnostics are read after every one, and the failures are fixed in the shop rather than on the field.

A robot that has only ever been driven once has not been tested — it has been demonstrated.

The season ends in the pit. A drive team takes the robot to district events while the rest of the team repairs, scouts and talks to judges and sponsors.

Gracious Professionalism is scored as hard as the matches are, and it is the reason the team keeps its alliances across seasons.