Project 01

Robotics Club

Chief Strategist & Vice PresidentRochambeau Robotics Club

Rendered model of the Botball 2026 Fall Game table with ducks, poms, cups and the platform

Facts

Role
Chief Strategist & Vice President
Where
Rochambeau Robotics Club
When
Grades 11-12
Time
4 hrs a week, 32 weeks a year

What I did

In 11th grade I helped bring Rochambeau's robotics club back after five years without one, and I ended up as chief strategist and vice president: running strategy for a team of ten and co-leading the meetings. We placed 2nd at MIT's international Zero Robotics competition. I treat game strategy like a math problem. For this year's Botball game I wrote a scorer that tests any plan before we build anything, then split the work between two robots based on where the pieces sit.

Links

In one line

I run strategy for Rochambeau's robotics team. We placed 2nd at MIT's Zero Robotics, and right now I'm working out how to win the Botball 2026 Fall Game.

How it was built

  1. Read the rules as math

    In the Fall Game, your total is the subtotal times the number of zones holding exactly one small duck, up to 5x. Once the subtotal passes about 8 points, every extra duck zone is worth a whole subtotal, so the ducks come first.

  2. Build a scorer

    I wrote tools/score.py to score any plan two ways: by the written rules, and by a cautious reading where every unclear rule goes against us. A plan is a small JSON file, so I can test a strategy before a robot moves.

  3. Plan in tiers

    The floor plan scores 64 points and the stretch plan 985. Seeding averages our best two of three runs, so I made each step independent: if one fails, the robot moves on.

  4. Split two robots by where the pieces are

    A mecanum Duck bot starts in the small box and takes all five ducks. A Lifter with a four-bar arm handles the pickleball, the cup flip, the red pom and the Botguy swap, which all sit within its reach.

  5. Generate the parts from code

    A Blender script builds the printed parts, with previews and a print-budget check, so when I change the field map the hardware regenerates.