JUSTIN KOCH: When I was a freshman at Caltech, there was a group of us that saw a NASA robotics competition. We thought that that looked really cool. It was a tele-operated rover competition. So a group of us, mostly freshmen, found the paperwork to start a club and…and we started the Caltech Robotics Team. My name is Justin Koch. I am a Caltech alum from 2015. I currently work at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
JAKE LARSON: There are 37 teams from around the world competing in the 2016 RoboSub competition where you have to build an autonomous underwater vehicle.
JULIA DEACON: One of the difficulties of the RoboSub competition is that the robots have to be autonomous. And that can be difficult, because it’s a robot. It can’t see, but we can code vision for it.
JAKE LARSON: I would say that the personality of Dory is a little impatient. Do I shoot a torpedo? Do I drop a marker? Do I drive forwards, do I drive backwards? Dory just figures out if she can do a task and if she can’t do it, she moves on to something where she can get more points.
JULIA DEACON: Dory did very well in her final run.
JAKE LARSON: We put Dory in the water, turned Dory on and let her go.
JULIA DEACON: We had a general sense that we were probably in the top three, but we didn’t know we were first place until third place and second place had been mentioned.
JAKE LARSON: When second place was announced and it wasn’t us, I started crying.
JULIA DEACON: It was one of the best experiences of my life. Everyone was so happy.
JAKE LARSON: I started shaking and I was a scene.
JULIA DEACON: Everything we’d worked so hard for had paid off in such an amazing way.
JUSTIN KOCH: Being able to support the team in whatever capacity that I can is fulfilling, knowing that regardless of where it ends up that it will be put to good use.
JAKE LARSON: Some of our sponsors are connected to alumni such as Sam Barnett who has SBB Research Group. Other companies include VideoRay, Honor, and Thales Avionics.
JULIA DEACON: Rhonda MacDonald is our top individual sponsor. She was one of the women in the first female graduating class at Caltech.
JUSTIN KOCH: She was sponsor even when I was a student. And it’s nice seeing the continued support. I think one of the important things about being a donor to the team is that we’ll continue to see great achievements from the team. And hopefully many future firsts.