FTC xCellence — Competition Robot
Engineer on FTC Team #22934 — omnidirectional drivetrain, TensorFlow autonomy, and five competition awards.
5
competition awards
1st
FTC Kazakhstan Regional
Designed the drivetrain and movement architecture for a FIRST Tech Challenge robot: omnidirectional chassis, dual driver-control modes, and a camera-based autonomous mode — the team won 1st place at the FTC Kazakhstan Regional and the Innovation in Engineering Award at the First Global Challenge.
Hardware decisions with software consequences
The drivetrain was the foundation everything else stood on: omnidirectional wheels for full-plane maneuverability, HD motors geared 1:12 for precision torque, and an elevated base that kept game pieces from jamming the chassis while improving camera sightlines. The claw's intake wheel is the design I'm proudest of — a small mechanical change that deleted an entire class of driver error.
The software mirrored the team's structure: autonomous, movement, configuration, and vision lived in separate modules. Autonomous mode detected the team prop with a TensorFlow pipeline, stored field positions, and planned trajectories from there. The team partnered with ISSAI at Nazarbayev University for the AI integration and was mentored by NU robotics engineering students.
Highlights
- Engineered omnidirectional chassis (omni wheels, HD motors with 1:12 gearboxes) with centrally mounted battery and control hub for weight distribution
- Full autonomous and teleop control stack in Java: TensorFlow team-prop detection, encoder/IMU sensor fusion for field localization, floating-point PID trajectory control
- Solved pixel-capture ergonomics by adding an intake wheel to the claw — eliminating manual alignment entirely
- Modular software architecture: separate autonomous, movement, config, and vision modules; dual drive modes with a three-level speed multiplier system
- 5 awards: 1st Place FTC Kazakhstan Regional, Innovation in Engineering (First Global Challenge), Samsung Solve for Tomorrow, Astana Hub Battle People's Choice, AI BATTLE (ISSAI / Nazarbayev University)