TEAM

What We Do

Team 9470 / Ctrl-Alt-Defeat

We build robots for a high school competition.

Team 9470 is a Bay Area student robotics team. We design, machine, wire, code, fundraise for, and present a robot that plays a new game each season.

If you have never seen robotics before, think of it like a sport: there is a field, matches, strategy, teamwork, and a machine the students built themselves.

Read the team story Meet the divisions
Team 9470 members together at an event
Team members working on the robot

The Competition

Every year starts with a new challenge.

We compete in FIRST Robotics Competition, a program where high school teams build robots to play a different game each season. The game might ask robots to pick up objects, score points, climb, balance, or work with other teams.

At events, students do much more than watch the robot. They drive, fix parts, scout other teams, talk with judges, and make quick decisions under pressure.

On the field, the robot plays short matches with alliance partners.

Off the field, students keep the robot running and improve it between rounds.

Build Season

The season moves fast, so everyone has a job.

The team keeps looping through the same cycle: understand the game, build a solution, test it, then make it better.

  1. 01

    Plan the robot

    Students decide what the robot needs to do well and turn early ideas into designs.

  2. 02

    Build the machine

    The team fabricates parts, assembles mechanisms, wires electronics, and checks that everything is serviceable.

  3. 03

    Make it move

    Programmers write the code, drivers practice, and the team tunes the robot until it responds reliably.

  4. 04

    Compete, repair, repeat

    At competition, every match teaches the team something. Between matches, students adjust fast.

Team 9470 robot competing on the field

Why It Matters

The robot is the project. The real goal is growth.

Students leave with practice in engineering, leadership, communication, budgeting, teamwork, and problem solving. They learn what it feels like to build something complicated with real deadlines and real consequences.

No robotics background is needed to understand the mission: Team 9470 gives students a place to learn by building something difficult together.