All Jacked UP

“Jack” was our first FRC Robot. Jack was built in Jan/Feb of 2019 with absolutely no idea what we were doing. His name came about because 1) we had no idea what we were doing and only had 4 weeks left to build him and 2) initial ideas included a scissorlift or mechanical jack to lift hatches to higher levels.

His goal was to attach hatches to cargo bays in FIRST 2019 DESTINATION: DEEP SPACE. The general build for the hatch attacher was developed from plans posted by Team 118’s Everybot project. The initial idea was to also have an “Elevator” to attach hatches at higher leves, but that idea got scrapped for time. The remnants can be seen in the long pillars holding his sides on.

Jack was programmed in Lab View and ran Tank Drive. He was controlled with two Thrustmaster T 1600 M Joysticks.

Danny Sucks

First, the name of this robot taught us a lesson about gracious professionalism and inside jokes. We thought it was funny b/c there was a drummer named Danny that two of the kids argued about all the time and we got really really frustrated with this robot.

The goal of Danny was to launch cargo into the hub to score. This set-up was our first forey into Neo motors, and we fought it all year. The intake/launch motor would run perfectly until it was under load…at which point the motor would immediately run full speed backwards. We never solved this problem.

Despite all of this, our driver made a name for himself as a defense bot, and we managed to be runner-up at the AR Regional and win a birth to Worlds. That’s right folks, we went to FIRST Championships with a wooden shoebox of a robot.

YEET! the baby

Yeet! was our 2024 entry for Crescendo. We based our design loosely on the designs from the Unqualified Quokkas and so named the robot YEET! as Quokkas supposedly throw their babies at enemies when threatened.

YEET used a pivot design and a pull through intake/outake combination. The programming team and the driver decided to code a “reverse controlls” button that allowed him to reverse the robots controlls to faster turn around time.

This year we threw out the Andymark kit and built our own WestCost drive train with a new gearbox. This robot also debuted our new pixel font numbers! YEET Competed at the Arkansas Regional and then at the Bayou Regional in New Orleans.

HUg bot/shawty/shody

We lost this wonderful write-up when trying to edit the robots page LOL I am really upset and I have no way to get it back.

I am so angry right now. HOW DID THIS ROBOT EVEN EXIST. It was a disaster that we loved. Also it exploded many many many parts across Kirby’s gymnasium.

Armstrong

Our 2023 Robot for Charged Up! was named Armstrong. Why? B/C its predominant feature was a single arm that encorporated a our first pivot and our first elevator. It also had our first articulating intake. A lot of first for Mechanically Challenged!
Armstrong was our first attempt at two regionals, and was debuted at at the Arkansas Regional and then also competed at the Green Country Regional in Tulsa.

Armstrong ran tank drive and was driven with the Thrustmaster controllers we have used since 2019. Another first for Mechanically Challenged was the introduction of a secondary operator. our “gunner” used an Xbox controller to control the pivot, the elevator, and the “claw”.

Ebirah- horror of the doorknobs

Ebirah was our entry for 2025 REEFSCAPE. Ebirah’s primary focus was an elevator made from the Thriftybot Elevator Kit with a lot of modifications. We went through three different intake designs throughout the season with the final design being pictured to the left.

Ebirah was, again, run off a modified west-coast frame running Kracken motors gifted to us by a team member’s family. Ebirah had three cameras and was our first robot to be retrofitted with SWERVE after the season.

Ebirah competed at the Arkansas Reginal and debuted an entirely new intake at the Smoky Mountain Regional outside Knoxville, Tennessee. Later Ebirah debuted his new Thrifty Swerve at the 2025 Ozark Mountain Brawl.