FIRST Robotics Competition

Overview

FRC is a master class in scoping. Six weeks to design, build, and program a 120-pound robot to play a game you have never seen before forces you to make decisions, defend them, and live with the consequences when the deadline hits.

What I owned

• Spearheaded development of the entire mechanical assembly across multiple seasons.
• Designed and built objective-handling systems: anti-jam intake mechanisms, ball launcher, block stacking mechanism, and disk firing system.
• Established Gantt charts, delegated technical responsibilities, and facilitated cross-functional collaboration between mechanical, electrical, and software.
• Drove and pit-crewed at competitions, handling repairs under tight rules.

Takeaways

A working robot beats an elegant CAD file. FRC taught me to fall in love with shipping and to value the mechanism that makes it onto the field over the version that lives forever in the model tree.