Behind the Scenes With a Teen Robotics Team Aiming for Glory

What does it take to shepherd an industrial-size robot from concept to fully functioning, competitive machine in just eight weeks? CNET checked in with Highlander Robotics, a team of young roboticists from Northern California vying against thousands of other global teams for a spot in April's highly competitive FIRST robotics championship in Houston.  

FIRST, a nonprofit promoting science, engineering and technology education, sponsors the annual competition, which draws innovators between 14 and 18. This season, they hail from more than 30 countries, including Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, the Dominican Republic, India, Israel, Mexico, Poland, Turkey and the US. Engineer, inventor and prolific patent holder Dean Kamen founded FIRST in 1989 to encourage young people's interest and participation in STEM.

Here's Highlander Robotics mechanical lead Vaughn Khouri, about a month before Highlander Robotics' first tournament of the season, assessing the robot's subsystem in the lab at Piedmont High School east of San Francisco, where he's a sophomore. 

The mechanical team spent January divided into sub-groups, each focused on a specific robot part, such as its elevator, arm or electrical system. February was all about constructing and testing their mechanism, then iterating on their design.

Meet Paddo the Frog, a robot conceived and built by Highlander Robotics, a team of Northern California high school robotics enthusiasts -- named after the Scottish version of the German fairy tale The Frog Prince.

This student-led team, founded in 2019 and also known as FRC 8033, is one of thousands of squads from around the globe that will compete in this year's FIRST Robotics Competition. The theme for the "game"? Charged Up. 

Charged Up tasks more than 3,300 teams with conceiving, designing and building a bot that addresses challenges related to United Nations Sustainable Development Goal No. 7 -- to ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all. 

Here, team member Caetano de Figueiredo adjusts the drive train for the telescopic boom on the robot. As evidenced by the whiteboard behind him, many hours of meticulous planning go into building a competition-ready robot. Twenty experienced mentors help guide the young FRC 8033 innovators as they build and program for hours at a time -- sometimes 12 or more over weekends and full days during school breaks -- in a lab at the team's home base, Piedmont High School east of San Francisco.  

On Saturday, Jan. 7, more than 3,300 teams around the world got word of this season's theme via livestream. FRC 8033 excitedly watched the reveal in the theater at Piedmont High School east of San Francisco, then rewatched it over and over before gathering in the lab for a day of brainstorming and planning.

The next day, it was into the lab for prototyping. 

By week two, the team was almost done constructing field elements. Here are Helena Young, a mechanical lead (left) and Ava Grochowski, a branding and design lead, inspecting robot parts. 

For this year's FIRST robotics competition, the robots, which will be both autonomously and remotely controlled, aren't allowed to exceed 140 pounds (around 64 kilograms). 

They'll score points by picking up and placing cones and cubes as they navigate a grid to place those object into goals. 

Here's FRC 8033 member Jake Baker tidying up prototype field elements, which are made out of wood so the team can practice on a simulated competition field.

FRC 8033 team member Nate Welch (left) and software lead Lewy Seiden assemble and wire the robot's swerve drive bases in late January. Assisting them is Lewy's dad, Alex Seiden, a senior software engineer at Cruise and a former computer graphics technical director at Pixar Animation Studios. Alex is one of a number of Highlander Robotics parents who serve as team mentors. 

The remotely controlled robots in this year's FIRST competition will score points by picking up and placing cones and cubes as they navigate a grid.

To do that, bots will need software, which Highlander Robotics members are seen here coding. They are (from left) Beck Peterson, lead mentor Kevin Clark, Helena Young, Reece Beck and Caetano de Figueiredo. 

Clark is a software engineer, a former employee of Apple and Microsoft, who's worked on search engines, operating systems, programming languages, machine learning infrastructure and web applications. 

This year, Highlander Robotics has some big-name sponsors: NASA, Lawrence Livermore National Labs, Western Digital, PG&E and NorCal FIRST, a community of more than 60 local FIRST robotics teams. 

Since FIRST's founding in 1989, more than 2.5 million young people from about 110 countries have participated in its programs.

"Beyond equipping young people with workforce-ready STEM skills, FIRSTteaches students about resilience," said Chris Moore, the organization's CEO. "FIRST is a robotics community where kids can find a place to belong, and a place to fail safely; making mistakes and learning from them is a critical part of the overall learning experiences we provide."

Here, Tiago de Figueiredo (left) and Aayan Jajodia assemble gears that will be used to help the system collect point-scoring cones.

Mentor Michael Abbott, a Ph.D. candidate in mechanical engineering at the University of California at Berkeley, stands with the evolving robot in the team's lab at Piedmont High School. 

Highlander Robotics members like Vaughn Khouri labor in an engineering lab full of tools like sanding wheels and drill presses. Wearing protective goggles is just one part of their safety protocol. They also work in pairs, wear close-toed shoes, tie their hair back and avoid loose clothing or jewelry. An adult schooled in tools is expected to be on site when kids go hands-on with machinery.  

"By encouraging FIRST participants to think about future energy sustainability, we're also empowering them to be the next generation of leaders and innovators, tackling the world's toughest challenges," FIRST says. 

Here, team member Nate Scher and team mentor Michael Abbott inspect the drive train for the robot's telescope boom, which will be used to place point-scoring cones and cubes into the goals.