The robotics team Cache Money 8096 is off to a successful start for their fall offseason, before they begin officially competing in January, continuing progress made since last year.

The team competed in two tournaments in October, placing third in the Boiler Bot Battle on Oct. 14 and fifth in the Roboteer Rumble on Oct. 28. 

Clara Cui, one of the team coordinators, said she was proud of the team’s performance and growth.

“We’re definitely really proud of our results, especially given our growth within the last two years at our recent competition,” Clara said. “We’re really proud of how we did because we were running almost completely new drivers.”

Coach Darren Fuller, a middle school science teacher, also emphasized the team’s progress.

“Last year was really key for us,” Mr. Fuller said. “Our growth in terms of skill has also rapidly increased over the course of last year, and now this year, we have a fourth mentor coming on who’s also an engineer. He’s going to help us with some of the non-technical aspects of robots.” 

Over the summer, Mr. Fuller went to Singapore as a volunteer for the FIRST Global Challenge, a global robotics competition, where he formed connections with teams around the world.

He shared that the team, also called Cache Money 8096, has collaborated with multiple teams around the world and will continue to work with others in the future. 

“We’re currently working with team Ghana, and we’re going to provide some mentorship, our team will help support their team, and then we’re hoping to connect to a couple of other FIRST Global teams so that over the next year or so we can provide some support and mentorship for them, and help them develop their skills,” Mr. Fuller said.

U-High’s Cache Money 8096 aims to continue their growth to prepare for the season and attend the world championship in Houston in April.

“We’re hoping to do as well as we can and all of our competition. So our ultimate goal is to get to the world championship in Houston,” Mr. Fuller said. “We need to make sure that we are learning new skills and passing the skills that we already know on to our new membership so that the team can grow together.”