FRC Team 8048 East Palo Alto, California

From a garage in East Palo Alto to the World Championship.

We are the ChurroBots: 20+ high school students from 10 schools who design, build, program, and drive a new competition robot every season. No applications. Show up, get your hands dirty, and find where you shine.

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2014 First FLL team
2019 FRC rookie season
2024 World Championship, Houston
2025 Poseidon, our fifth robot

00 How the team works

/ 01

No applications

Students of every experience level are welcome. Show up, get involved, find where you shine.

/ 02

Students lead

Students elect their captains, run every subteam, and make the calls. Mentors guide.

/ 03

Real robots, real stakes

A full-size competition robot, built in weeks, driven against the best teams in California and beyond.

01 Who we are

A community team, built by the students who run it.

The ChurroBots started in 2014 as a single FIRST® LEGO® League team at Hope Horizon in East Palo Alto. In 2019, two of those former FLL students, by then in high school, launched the FIRST® Robotics Competition team with nothing more than a simple drivetrain robot.

Today the team is more than 20 students from 10 different high schools. Students elect their own leaders, run every subteam from mechanical to business development, and make the calls at competition. Mentors guide; students decide.

Whether you want to machine parts, write control code, cut a hype video, or pitch a sponsor, there is a seat for you. You will leave with real engineering skills, a crew that has your back, and a lot of good stories.

Meet the team

The ChurroBots team and mentors pose with the Poseidon robot and a banner after the 2024 Silicon Valley Regional — 2024 Silicon Valley Regional

A student in safety glasses assembles a motor mount at the workbench — Build season

Students test a green-wheeled intake mechanism on the bench — Intake testing

20+

Students on the team

High schools represented

Competition robots since 2020

100%

Volunteer run. No paid staff.

02 What we build

A full-size competition robot, designed and built in weeks.

Every January, FIRST® reveals a new game and every team starts from zero. From there it is CAD, fabrication, wiring, code, and drive practice until the robot is on the field.

/ 01

Design & build

CAD the mechanisms, machine and assemble the frame, wire the electrical system, and iterate until it survives a match.

Students assemble a robot chassis with mentors looking on

MechanicalCADElectrical

/ 02

Program & control

Write the robot code that runs autonomous routines, drives the mechanisms, and reads the sensors, then tune it on a practice field.

A mentor and two students wire the electrical board on a robot chassis

Software: controlsSoftware: platform

/ 03

Compete & lead

Scout other teams, plan match strategy, raise the budget, tell the story on social media, and represent the team to judges and sponsors.

The Poseidon robot lined up on a practice field with the REEFSCAPE coral structure

Game playBusiness developmentMedia

03 The robots

Five seasons. Five robots. Each one named by the students.

Full history

FIG. 01

2020 / 21Infinite Recharge

Connie

Collected and stored power cells, scored in the low goal, and climbed the generator switch. Competitions went remote during the pandemic.
FIG. 02

2022Rapid React

Beefcake

Named for the steel plates bolted underneath to keep it planted. Intake, low hub scoring, low and mid rung climbs, and a "butter duster" that fired cargo at opponents during autonomous.
FIG. 03

2023Charged Up

Speedy Hedgehog

A very quick robot with a drop-down ground intake for cubes, low grid scoring, and the balance needed to dock on the charge station.
FIG. 04

2024Crescendo

Canelo

Fast ground intake, a shooter, and the ability to hang in harmony with alliance partners. Quick and slender enough to thread the stage. Took us to Worlds.
FIG. 05

2025Reefscape

Poseidon

A square, fast-cycling robot built to catch coral from the human station, extend its elevator, and score on levels 2 and 3. Can harmonize with a partner in the endgame.

04 Track record

From rookie award to the world stage.

A short history, told in three moments. The long version, robot by robot, is on the history page.

2014 → 2019

Three FLL teams grow into one FRC team

One FIRST® LEGO® League team at Hope Horizon became three over six years. Two of those students went on to found the ChurroBots FRC team in 2019.

2019

Highest Seeded Rookie, Cal Games

With mentorship from the Space Cookies (Team 1868), our first Cal Games ended with the Highest Seeded Rookie Award. That win set the pace for everything after.

2024

Silicon Valley Regional winners. Then Houston.

Canelo was part of the winning alliance at the 2024 Silicon Valley Regional, qualifying the ChurroBots for their first FIRST® World Championship in Houston, Texas.

Read the full history Results and impact

A student kneels beside the robot on an outdoor practice field, a red ball in the foreground — Practice, East Palo Alto

05 Why it matters

Most of our students will be the first in their family to go to college.

Robotics gives them a reason to show up twice a week, a mentor who takes their ideas seriously, and proof that they can build something real. Alumni have gone on to study mechanical engineering, computer science, and other technical fields.

Being on the Churrobots has taught me that I can do way more than I thought I could, with a community that will always have my back.

2024 team member

See our impact

06 Student leadership

Students lead. Mentors guide.

Two captains coordinate the team. Subteam leads own mechanical, CAD, electrical, software, strategy, and business development.

Sarah
Captain
Thunder
Build captain
Kevin
Mechanical lead
Santi
CAD lead
Ezekiel
Electrical lead

All nine leads and the mentors

07 Sponsors & partners

Every robot is paid for by people who believe in these students.

The ChurroBots grew out of a FIRST LEGO League team started at Hope Horizon in 2014, and the team is part of the Hope Horizon family today. Companies that have supported the team, and individual donors, fund the parts, tools, and competition entry fees.

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