SF UNITY Robotics

#9038

Our Purpose

We are a FIRST Robotics Competition team based in San Francisco that aims to promote STEM outreach in schools. SF UNITY has members from multiple high schools in order to further connect our community.

Our Story

SF UNITY was founded by Leyton Lin and Kyle Young, two high schoolers with an ambitious idea to start a FIRST robotics team. Our goal was to expand the network of people interested in STEM from outside our high schools. Instead of creating private teams within each of our schools, we wanted to conjoin our community and unify San Francisco. We also hope that SF UNITY will encourage a lot more students to join the STEAM community, as well as create stronger bonds between high schools.

Our Team

SF UNITY is comprised of over 40 diverse high school students, spanning from freshmen to seniors, across 7 high schools in the Bay Area. In the 2023-2024 season, the number of team members more than doubled, playing a crucial role in our success and strong team environment. SF Unity prioritizes collaboration because greater diversity in perspectives creates better outcomes.

Our 2024 Robot

Introducing… Phoenix, completely designed and fabricated by the SF UNITY team. Phoenix features a ground intake, indexer, and pivoting shooter that can double as a source intake. Phoenix also has a Limelight vision camera connected to the pivoting shooter for an auto-aiming feature to shoot from anywhere within our zone on the field. The team also opted for a Swerve drive base, increasing our robot’s speed and mobility on the field.

Our 2023 Robot

Meet Karl, Team 9038’s first robot! Karl’s named after the wonderful fog of San Francisco. Being SF UNITY, we wanted to embody San Francisco and become the iconic fog. This is a modification of the 2023 Everybot.

In the works(hop)…
Opensauce Maker Exhibition (6/14-16/24) We are very grateful to have showcased Phoenix at the Opensauce Maker Exhibition!
Fire at Humanmade (5/5/24) Unfortunately, our team is currently experiencing a period of uncertainty. Around one month ago, there was a small fire at the maker space where the team is located, Humanmade. Humanmade has served as a space for innovation and learning throughout our 2-year long partnership. Without their support, SF UNITY’s success would not have been possible. Although we have full confidence that Humanmade will be up and running soon, they made a GoFundMe campaign to reduce upfront losses.
East Bay Regionals (4/4-7/23) Ultimately, our team ended the season by placing 22 out of 60 at the East Bay Regional. Although we did not make it to the World Championships like in our rookie season, all members came away from competition season with increased confidence due to completely engineering our robot from scratch. This season served as a good learning experience, one that we are excited to use lessons from next year.
San Francisco Regionals (3/7-10/24) During the build season, our team ran into problems with staying on schedule, leading to placing 43rd at the San Francisco Regionals. However, our team banded together, each of our main members putting in around 20-30 hours a week before our next competition.
Crescendo Kickoff (1/6/24) Officially a veteran team now, 9038 kicked off the season with more than double the number of members from last year. Already we’ve been generating dozens of design ideas and look forward to the rest of the season!
FIRST World Championships (4/21/23) 9038 competed in the Archimedes division and competed very well as a rookie team. SF UNITY also won the Rookie Inspiration Award! This prestigious award celebrates a team’s outstanding success in advancing respect and appreciation for engineering and engineers within our community. We are so proud!
NEXT STOP: WORLDS (4/6/23) After competing at the San Francisco Regionals, SF UNITY won both the Highest Rookie Seed and prestigious Rookie All-Star Awards, catapulting us to Houston for the World Championships!
San Francisco Regionals (3/18/23) F UNITY competed in the San Francisco Regionals this past weekend and won 2 awards: Highest Rookie Seed and Rookie All-Star. We finished ranked 14/42 and were in the 6th alliance. Thank you to Team 649 and 8793! The Rookie All-Star Award is the highest honor a rookie team can receive, celebrating our team exemplifying a young but strong partnership as well as implementing the mission of FIRST to inspire students to learn more about science and technology. SF UNITY competed in the San Francisco Regionals this past weekend and won 2 awards: Highest Rookie Seed and Rookie All-Star. We finished ranked 14/42 and were in the 6th alliance. Thank you to Team 649 and 8793! The Rookie All-Star Award is the highest honor a rookie team can receive, celebrating our team exemplifying a young but strong partnership as well as implementing the mission of FIRST to inspire students to learn more about science and technology.
Karl Completed (2/19/23) After a lot of ordering parts, waiting, and building…Karl works! The intake system was completed last week and installed onto the superstructure, which was installed a few days ago. After attaching and wiring everything, Karl can now fully function with its arm and drive movement!
First Movement (1/28/23) Through persistence and lots of problem-solving, we’ve gotten the drive chassis moving and up on the Charged-Up plate! Looking forward to the arm!
2 Weeks In! (1/21/23) After a couple of weeks into the season, we’re going strong. We’ve finalized a design for our robot and ordered parts to start building. Hoping to get the drive base up and running soon!
Kickoff! (1/21/23) Official start of the season and tons of people showed up to help. We were invited to a kickoff event hosted by team 841 and were able to set up the coding software, build a chassis and the bumpers, as well as learn how to wire the electrical board. Good hopes for the rest of the season!
2nd Grant Received! (12/12/22) After much time and effort spent on creating diversity and business plans, we were able to receive another grant, surpassing our registration fee!
Grants Received! (11/9/22) Thank you to all of our sponsors for helping fund the registration fee and our memberships to our workspace - looking forward to the season!
Team 9038! (9/30/22) We are now officially a FIRST FRC team - go team 9038!
First team meeting! (8/29/22) This was the team’s first introductory team meeting where we explained what FRC is all about and how SF UNITY would work as a united team.
We Have A Space! (8/11/22) Kyle and Leyton toured a maker space called HUMANMADE which has generously allowed us to use their space to host meetings and use their advanced facilities! It’s so much more than what we had hoped for and we look forward to working with them!
Officially Signed Up For FIRST (6/22/22) Officially signed up for FIRST! We created an official FIRST team and had a couple of members join it. We also got our temporary team number #202300049! Some of us have also started working on some grants as well, with more to come in the fall.
First Grant Received! (6/11/22) BOEING was generously able to grant us money that covered the majority of the registration expenses!