T-shirt shooters. Vacuum shooters. Polyvinyl chloride pipes and cherry balls. Dodgeball projectiles shooting into a goal. These contraptions are only a taste of the ingenuity of the Millennium Falcons, Team 3647. At the crossroads of creativity, pragmatism and collaboration, the school’s robotics team, founded in 2010, is centered around the competition of developing modern robots to simulate challenges around relevant themes such as energy, transportation and environmental restoration.
Each year in January, the organization For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST) releases a different competition game, in which First Robotics Challenge (FRC) teams have around ten weeks to design, build and program a robot that can complete in the following month of competitions. In past years, the challenges have involved placing objects into specific regions or shooting projectiles into a goal with a real world spin. This year, the game was to put “coral,” or Polyvinyl chloride pipes, on a “reef,” and take “algae,” turquoise cherry balls, off the reef, so the “ecosystem” could thrive.
The team is made up of eight distinct departments, four technical and four nontechnical.
The four technical departments include the design department, tasked with drafting the fully modeled robot plans on 3D software; the build department, responsible for manufacturing parts and assembling hardware; the electrical department, in charge of wiring batteries and motors and the programming department, tasked with writing Java code that controls the robot’s complex functions.
The four nontechnical departments include the media department, in charge of taking photos and videos during competition; the finance department, tasked with fundraising, expenses and grant applications; the scouting department, involved in seeing how other robots are performing during competition and potential partnerships as well as outreach department, in charge of helping with the local FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) and FIRST Lego League (FLL) middle school and elementary school level chapters.
“People think if you like to tinker with something, [the team] would be [a great fit], but we actually have a space for [you] if you like to write [because] we need you to help us write our grants, or if you like art, [as] we love to have art people to design [merchandise],” Klint Kirkconnell, head mentor and advisor of the team said. “So we have … a job for anybody who wants to join.”
The eight departments collaborate with one another all the time, in order to understand, build and develop the complex design of the robot. Most people are also in more than one group as well, allowing for multidisciplinary cross over. The Millennium Falcons’ open and supportive structure grants students opportunities to explore different areas and gain invaluable experience. Dylan Lemke (12), vice president and head of build, describes how other robotics teams in the area can be very selective rather than encourage genuine interest in robotics.
“[In interviews, other robotics teams ask] … what experience do you have?” Lemke said. “And you’re like [a] freshman [thinking], ‘what experience am I supposed to have?’”
In contrast, at this school’s robotics team, the value of curiosity and dedication to cultivate new skills takes precedence over “selective” mentality. The off-season is focused on training new members “so they’re equipped to help out when things … ramp up during the build season,” according to Lemke. More than 54 members are involved in the team.
“You just need a passion, and then we have everything for you,” Daniel Zhang (11), the president of the Millennium Falcons, said. “We have [a] curriculum, we have trainings … so you don’t need to know coding or … how to use the machines.”
The team is “probably one of the most successful teams in San Diego,” according to Kirkconnell, and you “just have to want to put in the time.” The Millennium Falcons were Port Hueneme Champions in 2024 as well as semi-finalists of the Johnson Division during the FIRST Championship in 2025. Time and money is poured into robots, with annual budgets between $50,000 to $100,000. None of the money is provided by the school, but rather is raised through grants and fundraising by the finance department of the club.
“It’s pretty fulfilling, because if you really put a lot into it, then when it’s done, you can just step back and … go, oh my god, this is [a] $1,000 dollar robot, and it’s performing well in the competition,” Lemke said. “Like, this is essentially my child. I built this, and now it’s kicking butt.”
This sense of pride in the group’s hard work and dedication is shared by both the students on the team and their mentor.
“The biggest thing that hits me is freshmen come in, and they’ve never built anything in their life,” Kirkconnell said. “And by the time they’re seniors, they’re really, really good. And just watching them grow is … the best.”
