Our team is broken up into 4 main subteams: mechanical, electrical, software, and business. Each team may be working on their own individual tasks, whether that be working with sensors or building a pitch deck. However, the integration between these four teams is what allows us to work on the robot efficiently and allows members to learn about disciplines outside of their subteam.

The mechanical team is currently in the manufacturing stage of building our beach-cleaning robot. This includes working on the drivetrain and filtration assemblies, and using 3D modeling software such as SolidWorks to model our robot. We are a small and personal team—there are opportunities to work on many different components of the robot and to tackle and solve new problems creatively and obtain hands-on experience.

The electrical subteam designs and implements the sensor and power systems of our autonomous robot. Some of their current projects include: designing, assembling, testing, and iterating upon custom PCBs for sensor operation and power distribution; designing the base station's charging system to autonomously recharge the robot's battery using solar power; integrating a GPS-RTK (real-time-kinematics) to obtain high-accuracy localization data for the robot as it traverses the beach; and writing motor controller code using motor encoder data for the updated swerve-steering drivetrain.

The software subteam is the brain behind the robot. Software is working on a wide range of different challenges, working with the code, logic, and technology needed to make the robot function. Some of our current tasks include reading sensor data to detect our robot’s location and monitor its health, implementing computer vision models to allow for autonomous steering and obstacle avoidance, and visualizing our robot’s data through simulated animations.

The business subteam manages the logistics behind making the projects possible and actualizes the intended impact. This includes getting funding, managing finances, assisting in internal operations, marketing the organization, and more.