Ten students. Five seniors, five juniors. A season that turned around in a single weekend — and finished it undefeated.
Team 4650 is the oldest team in our program. It was founded in 2010, the year most of this year's freshmen were born. Fifteen seasons later, two students on this year's roster have been here for a third of that history. Carter and Grant joined as freshmen in 2021, back when 4650 was the only team Mayer Lutheran fielded.
This year was their best year.
It started, though, in the kind of way that tests a team. The robot they had built was capable — they could see it on the bench, watch it score in practice. But at the first two league meets, something kept going wrong. Connections dropped. The wheels would seize up. They'd score 29 points in a match they should have won by 50. By the second meet, they had slipped from third in the league to sixth.
Then they fixed it. They went back to the workshop, traced the electrical issues, rebuilt what needed rebuilding. At the third meet they scored 91, 93, 97, 94, and 86 — and never below 86 again. They rose from sixth to first in a single weekend.
At the league tournament, they went 6–0 and won the championship. Their best match: 162 points — the highest score by any team in the league that season. At the state championship, they finished twelfth of fifty-six teams. This July, they're heading to the Chicago Robotics Invitational — a world-level event.
The robot is built around a custom-engineered launcher and a vision system that helps it aim itself. The team designed it, built it, broke it, and rebuilt it over the course of the season — every iteration documented by the students in their engineering portfolio.
The robot uses a Limelight camera and AprilTag markers on the field to figure out exactly where it is. The launcher then automatically adjusts its speed based on the robot's distance to the target — no math required from the driver.
This year the team got access to a CNC router. They taught themselves to use it, then machined a brass weight that lives inside the launcher to keep its spin consistent. They machined flywheels for the other two Crusader teams too.
Their pickup mechanism uses surgical tubing and floating swing bars to gather artifacts from anywhere on the front of the robot. One of the team's signature designs — four full iterations this year.
Side shields in PLA, ball feeders in flexible TPU, mounts in PETG — each chosen for the specific job that part has to do. Five iterations on the side shields alone.
| Stage | Result |
|---|---|
| Meet 1 | #3 in league |
| Meet 2 | #6 (electrical issues) |
| Meet 3 | #1 in league — scored 91, 93, 97, 94, 86 |
| League Tournament | 6–0 · League Champions · Winner Award · 2nd Place Inspire |
| Best match | 162 points (league tournament) |
| State Championship | 12th of 56 · Galaxy Division · 6–2 record |
| National OPR rank | #520 of 8,065 — top 6% |
| Season record | 24–7 |
| Next stop | Chicago Robotics Invitational · July 24–26, 2026 |
Grant won the individual Stratasys Award this season — a statewide recognition awarded for his work both on his own team and across the program. He helps run our other two teams when they need a hand, teaches programming and CAD to younger students, and stays late more nights than the coaches do. He has one more year here. We're grateful for it.
Carter has been in the program for five years — the longest tenure of any current student. Zach, Isaac, Quinn, and Aiden joined as freshmen four years ago on our second team and grew into the leaders of this one. The underclassmen they mentored will carry what they've learned forward.
The robot you've been reading about runs roughly $2,000 in parts — chassis, motors, sensors, electronics, and the launcher mechanism. But the robot is only half of it: gifts also keep the tools that build it running — the CNC router, the 3D printers, and the shared workshop the whole program uses. The trip to Chicago this July will cost roughly $5,000 for travel, lodging, and event registration.
Every gift to Crusader Robotics helps cover those real costs. We don't sell sponsorships. We don't promise anything in return. We just put what you give straight into the program.