Technology High School Robotics

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An NRL Combat Robotics Team

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Tech High Robotics was founded in 2001 as a FIRST robotics team. For 12 years, we continued competing in FIRST before changing to a M.A.T.E. ROV robotics team, and finally, after COVID, we regrouped as combat robotics team. In this time, hundreds of students have contributed to the planning, building, and operating of various bots for a multitude of competitions. See our history page for more information.

What We’ve Been Up To

• Gearing up for Sacramento Bot Battles!

  It’s been a while since the last post, but a lot has been happening! Both of the 12lb/15lb bots have made huge progress. Our vertical spinner bot, titled Angular Aggression, is essentially complete, and REV 3 is fully complete. For Angular Aggression, we’ve received all of the electronics and frame pieces. This allowed us to assemble most of the bot and drive it for the first time. Later, we received the wedge, forks, and the steel weapon. The weapon then had to be sent out for hardening so that it doesn’t bend and dent too much in battle. The hardening of the weapon turned it from a shiny silver color to dark grey. Motors have been lubricated, which involved cleaning off the preinstalled grease on the motors, and replacing it with SHC100 grease. In addition, Angular Aggression’s blue wheels have been printed, cast, and assembled. The final touch on the bot was the bending and mounting of the 3mm titanium wedge. REV 3 has made just as much progress as Angular Aggression, both inside and out, but the most stunning part of it is without a doubt the chassis, which was machined out of a solid block of aluminum. It looked amazing before, but now we’ve had it anodized in a deep blue color, which makes it even better!

  

  

  Outside of 12lb development, the plastic antweight teams have finished designing their bots in CAD, and have 3D printed their robots. The teams, who have learned so much over the past few months, have assembled their bots, and were given new sets of tools we bought recently. This was all done in preparation for not just SBB (Sacramento Bot Battles), but a competition at our school. On March 10th, students and parents attended a small event where the PLANT teams could get their first practice with real combat, and I’m happy to say that everybody enjoyed the experience. The PLANT students of the education division were shown the weaknesses of and issues in their bots, which they are now addressing before SBB. We’re also immensely appreciative of the city of Rohnert Park for attending this event to present us with a $5,900 grant check that we were awarded. We will use the grant to upgrade our arena with stronger siding, buy spare parts for the antweight plastic robots, and to build a 15lb bot test box. At the school competition, they delivered the characteristic large check and spoke briefly, helping to motivate and inspire our students.
  
  Coming up next: Spring break and two more weeks of preparation – and then competition time! This will be our last update before we compete in April, wish us luck!
  If you’re interested in spectating, the competition will be held at Sierra College in Rocklin, CA. We expect to fight on Saturday, April 5th. More details here: https://www.placerrobotics.org/sacramento-bot-battles