Grozam marked a major milestone for Mechanically Challenged, as it was our first competition bot to utilize a swerve drive. Built with Thrifty Swerve Modules powered by Kraken X60's as the drive motors, and REV NEO motors for steering, the drivetrain gave our team a new level of maneuverability and control on the field.

The robot was designed around one primary objective: quickly collect game pieces from the floor and accurately shoot them in the scoring target. A slap-down intake gathered game pieces from the carpet and transferred them into an internal storage system. An indexer then fed each piece into the shooter. Throughout the season, we continued refining the design and eventually added a polycarbonate hopper, allowing Grozam to hold additional game pieces and improve scoring efficiency.

Vision played a significant role in Grozam's operation. The robot featured two cameras with dedicated purposes. A forward-facing camera assisted the driver with navigation and aligning the intake with game pieces, while the second camera was dedicated to helping aim the shooter for more accurate shooting.

Grozam also continued our team's tradition of incorporating extensive 3D-printed components. One of the most unique features was a set of custom shooter wheels printed from a specialized foam TPU material. The compliant structure of the wheels compressed the game pieces just enough to generate consistent launch velocity while maintaining an excellent grip. These wheels attracted significant attention from judges throughout the season and sparked many technical discussions about the design and manufacturing process.

Grozam competed at the Arkansas Regional, where Mechanically Challenged earned another historic achievement by captaining the eighth-seeded alliance-our team's first time serving as an official alliance captain at an FRC event. Later in the season, Grozam competed at the City of Fountains Regional in Missouri, where we were selected by the third-seeded alliance and advanced to a fourth-place finish.

The robot was operated with two Xbox controllers. The driver concentrated on field navigation, robot positioning, and aiming, while the operator managed the intake-mechanism, controlled the shooter, and maintained shooter wheel speed to ensure consistent scoring.

As with all of our recent robots, Grozam's software was developed in Java, continuing the programming language tradition of Mechanically Challenged throughout the 2026 season.