Boxy: FIRST Robotics '25

A competition robot for INTO THE DEEP built around a telescoping coaxial box tube arm capable of manipulating game pieces at high speed while remaining compact enough to climb.

The problem

INTO THE DEEP rewarded robots that could rapidly collect, score, and repeatedly cycle game pieces from constrained spaces while remaining lightweight enough for endgame climbing. The challenge was balancing structural stiffness, speed, and packaging inside a 14-inch competition footprint.

What I built

I independently designed the robot's entire mechanical architecture, iterating through multiple generations of every subsystem from concept through manufacturing. The final design combined a pocketed drivetrain with integrated odometry, a telescoping box tube arm with coaxial power transmission, and a custom two-degree-of-freedom claw optimized for reliable gripping. I used finite element analysis and extensive iteration to remove unnecessary weight while maintaining stiffness, packaging the robot with sub-millimeter tolerances and manufacturing nearly every custom component in-house.

Outcome

The finished robot consistently completed 6-second sample cycles and 9-second specimen cycles and won multiple awards, including the Inspire Award and Connect Award. More importantly, the project strengthened my experience designing lightweight mechanisms, optimizing for manufacturability, and rapidly iterating complex robotic systems from prototype to competition-ready hardware.