Show up
No applications, just an interest form. Whoever shows up on Tuesday and Friday is on the team. Attendance is the only admission test.
About Mission, vision, values
Homegrown engineers.
The ChurroBots are FIRST® Robotics Competition Team 8048: a community robotics team for East Palo Alto students, grown out of a FIRST LEGO League team started at Hope Horizon in 2014 and part of the Hope Horizon family today.
- Founded
- 2014 (FLL) · 2019 (FRC)
- Serves
- Students in grades 8–12 who attend school in East Palo Alto or live in the community
- Staff
- None. Entirely volunteer run.
What we do
Every season we field a full-size competition robot in the FIRST® Robotics Competition. Students design it in CAD, machine and wire it, write the software, scout and strategize, raise the budget, and drive it at regionals. Volunteer mentors from local companies coach each subteam. There are no applications and no tryouts.
04 Values
How the team works.
These are the working rules the team already lives by. Written down so sponsors, families, and new members know what to expect.
Students lead
Two elected captains and a lead for every subteam. Mentors bring experience and ask hard questions; students make the decisions.
Build real things
A competition robot is not a class project. It has to work under pressure, on a field, against teams with ten times the budget.
Gracious professionalism
FIRST®'s founding value. Compete hard, help the team in the next pit, and treat everyone in the building with respect.
Community first
Rooted in East Palo Alto and Hope Horizon. Students from ten schools, most of them the first in their family headed to college.
Run like a startup
Students handle purchasing, sponsorships, logistics, and the story. "It's like we're starting our own company," as one student told The Mercury News.
05 Who we serve
East Palo Alto students, grades 8 to 12.
Members attend a school in East Palo Alto or live in the community. The current team draws from ten different high schools; the majority of students are first-generation college students.
20+
Students this season
10
High schools
06 History
Twelve years, three FLL teams, five robots, one World Championship.
The ChurroBots began in 2014 as a single FIRST® LEGO® League team in partnership with Hope Horizon. Over six years that grew into three FLL teams. In 2019, two former FLL students, by then in high school, launched the FIRST® Robotics Competition team with a simple drivetrain robot and, with mentorship from the Space Cookies (Team 1868), won the Highest Seeded Rookie Award at their first Cal Games.
Five competition robots later, the team was part of the winning alliance at the 2024 Silicon Valley Regional and competed at the FIRST® World Championship in Houston. That summer the East Palo Alto Robotics Foundation incorporated to give the team a permanent, independent home.
