With kick-off behind us we now have full details on the 2026 challenge and have developed our priorities for our 2026 design. To understand our plans, it is helpful to first take a look at the 2026 game reveal video from FIRST:

Here are our priorities for meeting this challenge:

  1. Intake 30 fuel units (balls) in 10 seconds or less.
  2. Shoot them into the hub from any permitted shooting location in 10 seconds or less.
  3. Score initial balls on auton from any of three starting positions.
  4. Traverse the bump.
  5. Go under the trench.
  6. Climb to level 1.
  7. Collect balls from player station.
  8. Be able to eject balls to player station.
  9. Pass to our zone from any location on the field.

Our stretch goals are:

  1. Shoot on the move.
  2. Climb to level 1 in auton.
  3. Collect additional balls and score them in auton.

We have reviewed the work of a number of Robot in 3 Days (RI3D) teams and have several that we plan to use as models for our design. We watched Cranberry Alarm‘s build sessions in real time and like their basic plan. We are looking at modifying it to work with our preferred drive platform (we decided to use swerve drive from REV) and have some other mods that we think would better position us to climb, which they have not implemented so far.

We welcome your thoughts on our plans.