Center Stage

The 2023–2024 FTC season, Center Stage, challenged teams to place pixels on a backdrop and launch drones onto a rigging. The game rewarded both precision and speed, requiring a robot capable of reliable autonomous operation and fast human-controlled cycles. As CAD Lead, I opened the design season with a game analysis phase — breaking down point values, cycle times, and mechanical complexity to identify where we should focus our design effort. The backdrop scoring mechanism became the clear priority.

With two seasons of CAD Lead experience behind me, the Center Stage robot represented a step forward in design maturity. I moved away from some of the conservative choices of previous seasons and experimented with more compact mechanism packaging and better weight distribution. The entire robot was modeled in OnShape with collaborative access for the build team, allowing them to flag fabrication issues early. Custom 3D-printed components were used for mechanism interfaces and cable management solutions that would have been impractical to achieve with off-the-shelf hardware alone.

This was also the first season where I produced high-quality 3D renders of the robot using Blender. Importing the CAD geometry, applying materials, and setting up lighting produced presentation-quality visuals that we used for award submissions and team documentation. The Jaybots website features these renders alongside the awards the robot earned throughout the season — including recognition at the state level.