Paly Robotics is dedicated to enriching the education of its members through building, programming, animation, and community outreach. Our team is focused on learning new skills, which include technical skills, communication skills, leadership skills, and teamwork. We are proud to be a completely student-run team and whatever our finished products might be, they are always the result of students' work.
The Paly Robotics team is happy to have been a part of FIRST for 20 years. FIRST, or For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology, has a term "gracious professionalism" that we believe everyone should abide by. To read more about FIRST go to their website.
Good design is key to developing a successful robot, and this is the job of the Design Team. Design Team leads the team in prototyping, allowing different mechanisms and ideas to be built and tested out. After determining which prototypes work the best, Design Team creates a computer-aided design (CAD) of the robot before it is built.
The Build Team is in charge of — you guessed it — building the robot! The Build Team takes a design and makes it a reality, thanks to Team 8's plethora of tools, including a lathe, CNC mill, laser cutter and 3D printer. In addition to machining, Build Team members learn about topics such as robot wiring and pneumatics systems, bringing all of this knowledge to help create the final product.
Writing code in Java and Python, the Software Team works alongside Build Team to test our robot and make it functional. In addition to autonomous and human control of the robot, they code features such as computer vision, and a dashboard to display the robot status during matches. We collaborate using Git, and publish our projects here: www.github.com/team8.
What does art have to do with robotics, you may ask? Well, in addition to hosting the classic regional and national robotics competitions, FIRST also holds an annual animation contest! Our Art Team works together to create short videos for this competition using Autodesk 3D animation software. Art Team also designs our t-shirts, posters, flyers, banners, logos, buttons and anything else you can think of!
The Business Team has ensured the financial sustainability of the team since its inception in 2015. Business Team oversees all corporate sponsorships, fundraising, outreach, awards, and public relations efforts. Every year we develop business, sponsorship, and diversity plans. We have been recognized by FIRST and the Western Region Robotics Forum (WRRF) for our work.
Business Team has won the Entrepreneurship Award 3x: Central Valley Regional 2015, Silicon Valley Regional 2015, CalGames 2016
The Web Team is in charge of creating and maintainingthis beautiful website, palyrobotics.com. The Web Team uses a variety of tools, including HTML, CSS, Javascript, Jekyll, Bootstrap, and Heroku, in order to update the website with the necessary information for the greater productivity of the team.
Arguably one of the most influential tech companies of the Information Era, Google is a symbol of modern technological innovation. Based in nearby Mountain View, Google sponsors Team 8 as part of its mission to inspire the next generation of technological pioneers. |
Intuitive Surgical manufactures robotic surgical machines designed for minimally invasive surgery, which are employed in hospitals throughout the U.S. We admire their advances with robotics into the field of medicine, and are proud to be sponsored by Intuitive Surgical. |
Dropbox is one of the most well-known file hosting companies in the world, and offers accessible cloud storage and file synching to its users. Their sponsorship has made us more efficient and an overall better team. |
Nvidia is a multinational hardware and software company based in Santa Clara. Their strides in computer hardware are incredibly impressive, and we are proud to be sponsored by them. |
Solidworks sponsors Team 8 by sending us free student copies of their CAD software, allowing us to effectively design and prototype our robot. They also donated a powerful CAM tool that we use in conjunction with our CNC Mill and 3D Printer. |
Webcor Builders is a construction contractor, headquartered in San Francisco. The support of Webcor means a lot to us, their impressive portfolio of building projects amazes and inspires us. |
Coming Soon! |
Coming Soon! |
Kirk's Steakburgers sponsors Team 8 by providing us with delicious burgers to keep us fed during build season. |
