Lobstah Bots Robotics Season Recap
BUA’s robotics team, the Lobstah Bots, netted some impressive accolades this year! Coco M. ’26 shares the following season recap.
The Lobstah Bots’ 2025 season has come to an end. After 13 weeks of engineering an entirely new robot, dubbed Beluga, Team 246 has finished its best season since 2016.
Build season started on the first weekend of January, in which the whole team came together to analyze the season and brainstorm robot ideas at Kickoff.
The Lobstah Bots came together to make some big decisions and get a good start on the robot. Following a long iteration and prototyping process, the team worked together to quickly design, fabricate parts for, assemble, wire, and program a functioning robot from scratch in six weeks, to make it to the Week 0 preseason scrimmage event. At the Week 0 scrimmage, we got to get an early look at the game play, get our drivers comfortable with the robot, and identify important areas to improve our robot before our first competition. Completing version 1 of the robot was one of the team’s main goals for the season, and something we were very excited to accomplish. Between Week 0 and the start of our official competition season, our team identified and improved important subsystems of our robot; some that saw major iteration were our end effector and intake.
For our official district-level competitions, we attended two events: the Greater Boston District Event and the University of Rhode Island District Event. Our first competition was the Greater Boston District Event in Revere. We had a wonderful time at the event, and were proud to see many new members picking up roles in pits and stands!
At URI, we seeded eighth out of 37 total teams after qualification matches, and reached the semifinals in playoffs as the first pick of alliance 4. After the team’s performance at our district events, the Lobstah Bots qualified to attend the New England District Championships (DCMP) and compete at the highest level in New England for the third year in a row! At DCMP, we had a lot of fun playing against the top tier of teams all across the district. We also had our most successful DCMP run since 2016, a feat to be truly proud of!
Throughout the season, students gained engineering skills in areas such as design, fabrication, electrical engineering, and programming. In addition, they learned valuable lessons in collaboration and leadership. At all of our events, students explored a wide variety of areas from game strategy to scouting, robot maintenance, and troubleshooting issues in pits. Some team members reflected on their experiences this season:
Emilia M. ’28: “This year I learned to manufacture parts for the robot using a variety of machines such as the vertical bandsaw or drill press, along with in the moment fixes in pits at competitions.”
Sabina S. ’28: “One of my favorite parts about scouting and strategy is the excitement you get from trying to predict which alliance of robots will win. It’s really reassuring to know that all of the work you did scouting robots for hours makes a huge difference in how our team plays, to the point where it can affect our rankings in the event and how well we do overall.”
Team Captain Kendree C. ’25: “I love this team because it always inspires me to see how much passion and excitement everyone has to learn more about robotics, no matter their prior experience level. It’s been amazing to watch this team improve so much in the last four years, and I’m going to miss being part of its wonderful community.”
Our work during build season and at competitions did not go unrecognized, as we won an award at every event we attended: the Excellence in Engineering award at URI, the Gracious Professionalism award at Greater Boston, and the Team Spirit award at District Championships, celebrating our excitement in stands and our dedication to fostering a supportive community. This is our sixth consecutive unique award, continuing our two-year streak, which truly shows our versatility as a team!
The Lobstah Bots’ season has come to a clawsome close. Thank you to the parents, mentors, faculty members, and volunteers who have supported the team at every moment along the way! We’re looking forward to making even bigger waves next year! The team poses after winning the Team Spirit Award at District Championships Season Recap 20 Look at our Lobstah spirit at the District Championship!
