Build Blog 2025
Week 7 - Rising to the Surface
Subteams are working hard to finish our competition robot before our first competition, Pinnacles Regional.​
With only one week before our first competition, Design is implementing multiple changes to our competition robot. Some of these changes include a new end effector design enhanced by a new material, MAXComposite; switching indexer and intake motors; and considering better intake options. Additionally, they have been cutting spare parts for Comp and working with Electrical to wire the robot.
Hardware Design
Hardware Fabrication
The Hardware Fabrication subteam has been working on finishing parts for both the Comp and Beta upgrades. They also started working on the spare parts for Comp with the goal of finishing everything this weekend.
Hardware Electrical
Hardware Electrical has been assisting Design with multiple upgrades, swaps, and changes being made to Comp. They are rewiring the swapped mechanisms, improving the reliability of our competition robot, and preparing to upgrade our Beta robot.
Software Scouting
The Software Scouting Front-End subteam ran a full system field test for our Match Collection app and is currently implementing new features, including bigger buttons and different colors. Front-End is continuing to test the Viewer app and is debugging it before the competition.
Software Scouting Back-End ran a full system field test to ensure the functionality of the codebase. They are in the process of fixing the last few bugs found during testing and have started to implement more extensive stress testing to ensure that our system works flawlessly during the Pinnacles Regional.
Software Robot
​Software Robot successfully implemented coral detection on our competition robot. They are currently updating sequencing for the newest iteration of Comp, and are working on both our single and multi-piece autos.
BAm
Business and Media recently released an Instagram announcement video for our newest sponsor: The Sacramento Kings! In the first three days, the post has gained 20,000 views and more than 800 shares. They continue to take media to document the progress of our robot for future videos.
Strategy
Strategy has been pre-scouting teams that will be at the Pinnacles Regional. To get a better understanding of what to expect at competition, they have also been analyzing Week 0 events and crafting new match strategies.
Impact award
This week, Impact Award has been preparing for our interview at Pinnacles. The presentation team has been practicing in front of a round of parents acting as mock judges. For the presentation, the Impact team designed a prop that includes information about the team, photos, graphs, moving LED lights, and a glowing lime in the center. The prop is nearing competition with help from our shop mentors.
Week 6 - All Hands on Deck
With just under two weeks before our first competition, our team is working hard to finish our Comp robot!
Hardware Design
With our first regional in less than two weeks, Hardware Design is making all of the final revisions to Comp, which will be our competition robot. They plan to upgrade Beta, our practice robot, with Comp's features, which includes altering the indexer to stabilize it when intaking coral, modifying the rollers, and continuing to test and reiterate the design of the End-Effector. Once Comp is brought up by Software, they plan to test and reiterate the design or pivot to a different one
Hardware Fabrication
This week Hardware Fabrication has been hard at work fabricating parts for our Comp and mega defense robot. Additionally, they have started creating parts for our updated Beta robot.
Hardware Electrical
Over the past few days, Hardware Electrical has finished wiring our Comp robot. They have been working on creating a signal loop for our motor system, fixing strips of LEDs onto the robot that will be used to signal the driver, and wiring the new Limelight 4.0 cameras for our vision system. They are preparing to re-wire portions of the Beta robot as Design plans to upgrade certain features.
Software scouting
Software Scouting Front-End is working on fixing some last bugs in Match Collection, as well as adding features to make scouting more user friendly. They are continuing to work on finishing auto paths on Viewer and have been testing our Stand Strategist app and Subjective Scout app in order to prepare for our full system field test.
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Software Scouting Back-End finished up most of their projects, including machine learning for match predictions, a new elimination bracket prediction system, and pickability calculations. They have begun a series of full-system field tests to ensure our system is robust and competition-ready for the Pinnacles Regional.
Software robot
Software Robot has just brought up the Comp robot, SubLime! They are working on porting all the code into the robot, tuning auto align setpoints on Beta, an improved autonomous architecture, mechanism visualization for Comp, and updating the way they plan their superstructure.
BAM
The Business and Media subteam has been continuing to work on the Robot Reveal and Impact videos. In addition, they have been handling merchandise sales, budgeting, designing the sponsor panel and pit display, and transferring our website to another hosting provider. They are also finishing the February newsletter that will go out later this week.
Strategy
Strategy has been continuing to analyze 2023 and 2024 data to predict the abilities of teams that will be at Pinnacles Regional. They have also been watching Week 0 events to figure out the rough capabilities of other robots.
Impact award
The Business and Media subteam has been continuing to work on the Robot Reveal and Impact videos. In addition, they have been handling merchandise sales, budgeting, designing the sponsor panel and pit display, and transferring our website to another hosting provider. They are also finishing the February newsletter that will go out later this week.
Week 5 - sailing into success
It's our fifth week of build season, and our first regional is rapidly approaching! We're picking up the pace before Pinnacles so we can have our robot confidently ready to go.
Hardware design
Hardware Design worked on finalizing SubLime. They reworked the coral intake and adjusted the algae intake to be able to score. They’ve tested the end effector and might have to pivot differently with the design. All mechanisms such as the drive train, elevator, climber, and indexer are being assembled.
hardware fabrication
Hardware Fabrication continued fabricating parts for SubLime and are working on finishing them. Fabrication made a total of 150 parts this week on all the machines.
Hardware Electrical
Hardware Electrical wrapped up wiring the beta robot and started working on preparations for SubLime. They received a new set of batteries and fully wired them for the competition season.
software scouting
Software Scouting Front-End has been working to finish match collection documentation. They adjusted some features for the Viewer app including updating auto paths, datapoints, and some screens for this year's game. They are also working to add new features to some of their other apps such as Overrate.
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Software Scouting Back-End continued on their expansion projects, including using machine learning for match predictions, anomalous data flagging, and a new elimination bracket prediction algorithm. They plan on beginning full system field tests next week.
software robot
Software Robot worked on tuning the auto-align sequence on the Beta robot for the robot to better understand when it's ready to score. They also prepared code for autonomous routines and started preparing code for SubLime after hardware gave them a few subsystem changes. They are currently working on setting IDs for the drivetrain and tuning Limelight vision.
bam
This week, the Business and Media subteam has been hard at work on the Robot Reveal and Impact Award videos. They also focused on strengthening sponsor relationships by inviting sponsors to our Reveal Night and posting daily thank-you messages on Instagram. Additionally, the team tackled several graphic design projects, including designing the sponsor banner, developing branding for SubLime, and creating multiple flyers for outreach initiatives.​​
strategy
impact award
This week, Impact Award has been preparing to submit the Impact Award this Monday, February 10. They have been collaborating with Australian FRC team 5985 on their submission. They started to build a circuit-themed-prop for their presentation which will feature LED lights, guiding the judges through the journey of our FRC Team.
Strategy continued to work on creating and finalizing robot ability matrices. They also began analyzing past data from 2023 and 2024 to predict the abilities of teams at our first competition (Pinnacles Regional).
Week 4 - a reflection on our week
It’s the fourth week of Build season, and our subteams have been hard at work! Our team finished assembling our Beta robot and has started to design our competition robot.
Hardware design
This week, Hardware Design constructed our Beta robot and started working on the CAD for our competition robot. They are still prototyping certain mechanisms, including the coral intake and the end effector, to ensure we can compete at a high level this upcoming year.
Hardware fabrication
Fabrication has spent the majority of this past week fabricating the drivetrain and other parts for our competition robot. In their spare time, they organized the shop.
Hardware electrical
Hardware Electrical fully wired our report and made preparations for new batteries that will be used during the competition season. They also wired up the new elevator chain system, ensuring the wires were fully protected on our scoring and end effector.
Software Scouting
Software Scouting Front-End has been working to properly activate buttons when the scouted robot intakes or scores certain game pieces. They are also working to rewrite pages in the Jetpack Compose UI framework, as well as updating year-year features like data points, app images, and user preferences.
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Software Scouting Back-End worked on training machine learning to improve predictions. They also worked on updating their apps to predict the playoff double-elimination brackets and simulate matchups, detecting anomalous data points in scouted data, and creating a competition report summarizing the accuracy of scouts and predictions.
software robot
The Software Robot subteam has gotten all the subsystems on beta up and running and is currently working on tuning our superstructure sequencing so that we can score CORAL on the REEF and ALGAE in the NET as fast as possible. Additionally, having just received the Limelight 4s, the subteam has brought them up on alpha and is preparing to move auto-align logic over to beta. Beta's mechanism visualization has also been completed, so we can now playback where the robot thought it was in our logs.
bam
The Business and Media subteam has been working on multiple videos, including our annual Robot Reveal video and our Impact Award Video. They have also continued to manage our expenses and sponsors, as well as expand our social recognition through our various social media platforms, newsletters, and other community outreach.
strategy
impact award
This week, Impact Award worked on finishing the Essay and Executive Summary for their submission in under a week. They also started to record voiceovers for the Impact video and finalized visuals. The presentation team is working on the script, as well as finishing a prototype of our Impact prop, in preparation for our first parent panel next week.
Strategy has been further refining and consolidating various simulations. They have also been working on creating robot ability matrices, which compare and predict the abilities of different tiered robots.
Week 3 - raise the reef
Welcome back to the third week of the build season! Through all the hard work from our subteams, we are almost finished with our Beta robot, the second iteration in the process of developing a final robot design.
Hardware design
Hardware Design has been focusing on assembling our Beta robot in time to practice with Team 254 in San Jose next week. Prototyping groups are putting together parts provided by Fabrication and attaching them to the drive train.
hardware fabrication
Hardware Fabrication has been hard at work producing parts for Beta, while also completing several key components crucial to its assembly. They have experimented with making bumpers on our Haas machines, based on the new bumper construction rules for this season. Fabrication’s attention to detail continues to play a vital role in bringing the robot closer to its competition-ready state by passing on parts for assembly to Hardware Design and Electrical.
Hardware electrical
Hardware Electrical has been working on wiring Beta’s belly pan and intakes and preparing materials to wire batteries. Additionally, they have been completing the defense bot, which will be used for driver practice to simulate game conditions.
software scouting
The Software Scouting Front-End subteam has been working hard, updating data points and the user interface for the Match Collection app that is used to capture the capabilities of alliance partners during competition. One of the key issues has been updating how auto paths will be viewed.
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This week, Software Scouting Back-End finished the server’s core calculations, and it now runs successfully! They also updated all code testing to 2025. The server now has all the basic functionalities needed for competition, and they are moving on to exciting new projects: machine learning for predictions, global skill rating systems, post-competition analytics, and automatic anomalous data flagging. ​
software robot
Software Robot has been working on drafting autonomous routines, creating a custom controller to merge following Choreo trajectories with our own pure pursuit automated scoring system, and improving our calculations to follow and optimize trajectories. To visualize the mechanisms of our Beta robot, they have been working on simulating the superstructure of Beta. Additionally, they have been starting preliminary bring-up procedures of CAN IDs on Beta and the defense robot.
bam
This week, Business and Media has been hard at work planning upcoming videos, including the Robot Reveal and Impact Award videos. They also finalized 2025 apparel designs, worked on the budget, updated the website, and completed multiple graphic design projects.
strategy
impact award
This week, Impact Award has made progress on all parts of the award submission, including the essay, the executive summary, and the Impact Award video. Using data from the recent team Demographic Survey, the subteam has added additional supporting detail to the Impact Award essay.
Strategy has been developing simulations to analyze different tradeoff situations during matches. Additional projects include working on classifying and identifying robot traits, as well as identifying and classifying match collectives, ultimately preparing for competitive success.
Week 2 - what's kraken
It’s the second week of build season and our team has been hard at work. This week we have completed the architecture of Beta and achieved our first successful auto score!
hardware design
Prototyping is nearly complete, and Hardware Design has finalized the Beta architecture. They started to assemble the drivetrain and hope to have the coral intake, climber, and elevator drawings ready to send to fabrication soon​
fabrication
This week, Fabrication created parts for the practice fields, started on a drivetrain for Beta, and organized the shop in preparation for the large number of parts they will need to create soon.
hardware electrical
Hardware Electrical helped the Design subteam finish our prototyping projects and began preparing to wire the Beta and Competition robots.
software scouting
Software Scouting Front-End is continuing to update our Match and Pit Collection apps and our Stand Strategist apps, ensuring they’re fully ready for the season.
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Software Scouting Back-End finished coding our core calculations for the 2025 game. They are currently working on updating auxiliary calculations and field-testing our entire system.
software robot
Software Robot continued to work on auto-scoring, getting our first successful score this Saturday! Additionally, they brought up the Alpha robot, got vision running on the coprocessors, and started drafting and simulating subsystems for Beta.
bam
Business and Media has been taking and processing media, creating the annual Impact Award video, managing the team budget and expenses, and working on reaching out to the community through social media.
strategy
Strategy has been using our analysis of different nuances, ambiguities, and exploits within the game rules to create Q&A questions to publish online. Additionally, they started looking into and comparing possible strategies that could be run during matches and began developing simulations to analyze different tradeoff situations.
impact award
The Impact Award subteam has been continuing to work on revising the essay and executive summary and developing a circuit-themed prop and script for our presentation.
week 1 - deep dive
Welcome to the weekly Citrus Circuits Build Blog! Here we will discuss what our team is doing throughout the build season to prepare for this year’s game, Reefscape.
kickoff
On January 4, our team participated in the kickoff for the worldwide reveal of the 2025 game Reefscape. In the morning, we hosted 15 other teams at Brunelle Hall to watch the reveal livestream. Throughout the weekend, we split into small groups to read and analyze the game manual and determine what our robot should do.
Reefscape
In Reefscape, presented by Haas, teams will use their STEM and collaboration skills to explore life beneath the ocean's surface. Two alliances of three teams compete to earn points by harvesting Algae (16″ rubber playground balls), and seeding Coral (12″ by 4″ PVC pipe) on their Reef. Alliances will also earn points by parking underneath or climbing onto Deep (3-1/8 in. off the ground) or Shallow (2 ft. 6-1/8 in. off the ground) cages to ascend to the ocean’s surface.
hardware designed
The Hardware Design subteam completed the architecture for Beta, our second robot in the design process, dividing into smaller prototyping groups to focus on testing key mechanisms for our 2025 robot, including the Algae and Coral intakes, as well as both high and low pivot climbs.
hardware fabrication
Fabrication members have spent the last week machining wood parts for prototyping and starting other parts for Alpha, the first robot in our design process that consists of a drivebase with preliminary designs of our proposed mechanisms.
Hardware Electrical
​Electrical subteam members have been assisting in prototyping our 2025 robot, running motors off prototyping rigs, and assisting with the overall prototyping and documentation process.
software scouting
Software Scouting Front-End is currently updating our Match Collection app to reflect the 2025 game, Reefscape. They are also improving our Pit Collection and Stand Strategist apps, ensuring they’re fully ready for the season.
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Software Scouting Back-End has been determining what data points we are going to collect this year and updating the schema. They have also been creating new calculations for this year’s unique scoring mechanics.
software robot
The Software Robot subteam has been brainstorming options for auto-aligning to different places on the field, how to approach odometry and vision implementations, and updating all of the Alpha contenders as hardware determines which robot to call Alpha.
bam
​Electrical subteam members have been assisting in prototyping our 2025 robot, running motors off prototyping rigs, and assisting with the overall prototyping and documentation process.
strategy
The Strategy subteam has been analyzing the nuances and potential exploits within the Reefscape game rules. Their current focus is on refining match flow strategies and beginning to create simulations to optimize our robot's performance.
impact
This week, the Impact Award subteam has been hard at work revising the essay and executive summary. They are also collaborating with an Australian team, 5985 Project Bucephalus, to gather video material for both of our submissions. The team began developing a circuit-themed prop and script for the presentation.
thank you, parents!
​A big thank you to all the parents who helped us build the field elements for this year’s game and provided the meals for our weekend meetings. All your efforts and support encourage us to do our best and help us get a great start to the new season!