Unlike the past three seasons, this year’s game does not involve shooting balls into a target. But it was also just everyone doing the best they could.” Ware said. “Coming into the competition we knew we had a good robot, obviously we didn’t expect it to be that good. Highlander Robotics has taken advantage of these opportunities after two top finishes and a qualification for world championships.

Team 8033 has received grants from large tech companies over the past seasons, including Apple, Google and NASA. So now we can run an Instagram, a YouTube channel, we made a new website,” Ware said.Īdditionally, the team doubled its budget from last year, jumping from $38,000 to $72,000, which consists of registration fees, sponsors and grants. “Now that we have more members, we also have an entire operations branch, which is broken up into business, outreach, design and branding media. This meant that Highlander Robotics could expand operations beyond the Mechanical and Software subteams, which work on building the robot, and put more resources into new aspects of the team. It also got the word out that we were a pretty good team, and that helped with recruiting,” Ware said.

“The success of going to worlds motivated people. Ware said this season the team was fueled by an influx of new participants, as the team grew from 30 to 54 members. “With the success of last year everyone got really excited for the season and everyone put in a lot of work over the summer and the offseason,” said senior and team captain Alex Ware. However, with a fifth seeded finish at the Monterey Bay Regional on April 1, they secured a wild card spot to the 2023 FRC World Championships in Houston Texas on April 19. The team kicked off their season at the Central Valley Regional on March 9, finishing qualifications ranked fourth, and losing in finals. However despite being in only their third season of competition, Team 8033, or Highlander Robotics, is proving that their trip to the world championships last year was no fluke. This sounds like a seasoned FIRST Robotics Challenge (FRC) team. Finishing in the top five in back to back regionals, finaling in both, and ranked tenth in California.

The wrong highlander