The Killa-Byte Cubs, formally known as Team 3408, submitted their robot to the 2016 FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC), FIRST STRONGHOLD. The robots will compete at the Los Angeles Regional competition at the Long Beach Convention and Entertainment Center from March 9–12.

The FIRST Robotics Competition is open to high school teams, and the game design of FIRST STRONGHOLD was revealed via a YouTube broadcast on Jan. 9 to all participants in the FRC program.

There are many objectives during the course of the match between a defensive and offensive field, and Team 3408 designed an offensive approach for the competition.

Teams were given six weeks following the game reveal on Jan. 9, and all robots had to be completed by Wednesday, Feb. 24 at 12 a.m. Teams were given specific guidelines including the permitted materials, the code formatting and certain objectives that can earn a team points.

This year’s game arena is set up in a medieval context where two robots duel against each other, and the goal is to take control of the opponent’s castle. Robots can gain points by launching a ball into the castle, lifting the robot to the top of the castle, and taking control of central barriers and boundaries.  

The robotics team has four sub-teams including Business, Marketing and Finance; Programming with C++ and Java; Mechanical Engineering; and Electrical Engineering. Senior Daniel Lytle, team captain of the Mechanical Engineering sub-team, said, “Our two main goals are simple. First, we want to ignite a passion of engineering in every student because they might not have the same applied science experience in their regular science or math class.” He added, “We also want to have a successful robot that can compete against other robots and move on past regional levels.”

After the robot was completed, they wrapped it in a bag and printed out the code to confirm that all work had been completed by the deadline. Team 3408 will send its robot to the Los Angeles Regional in Long Beach on March 9.