2019 - DESTINATION: DEEP SPACE
2010 - BREAKAWAY
2010 - BREAKAWAY
2010 - BREAKAWAY
2010 - BREAKAWAY
Our latest creation, BanTOR III, is one powerful machine. The telescoping climber never failed to raise this beautiful bot. This robot also featured an unstoppable 6 Neo west coast drivetrain, that quickly zipped this little machine across the field. BanTOR III utilized a 5 ball autonomous mode to rank 3rd at the 2020 Los Angeles Regional and went all the way to the finals with teams 5124 and 2576. Unfortunately, this robot never got to compete at Champs (Thanks COVID, love you), however we did take our first-ever Chairman's Award at the cancelled Sacramento Regional.
Our latest creation, BanTOR III, is one powerful machine. The telescoping climber never failed to raise this beautiful bot. This robot also featured an unstoppable 6 Neo west coast drivetrain, that quickly zipped this little machine across the field. BanTOR III utilized a 5 ball autonomous mode to rank 3rd at the 2020 Los Angeles Regional and went all the way to the finals with teams 5124 and 2576. Unfortunately, this robot never got to compete at Champs (Thanks COVID, love you), however we did take our first-ever Chairman's Award at the cancelled Sacramento Regional.
Our latest creation, BanTOR III, is one powerful machine. The telescoping climber never failed to raise this beautiful bot. This robot also featured an unstoppable 6 Neo west coast drivetrain, that quickly zipped this little machine across the field. BanTOR III utilized a 5 ball autonomous mode to rank 3rd at the 2020 Los Angeles Regional and went all the way to the finals with teams 5124 and 2576. Unfortunately, this robot never got to compete at Champs (Thanks COVID, love you), however we did take our first-ever Chairman's Award at the cancelled Sacramento Regional.
Team 1197 has also won the following awards throughout our team history:
2020 Sacramento Regional
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Regional Chairman's Award
2020 Los Angeles Regional
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Regional Finalist
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Quality Award sponsored by Motorola Solutions Foundation
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Championship Wildcard
2018 Central Valley Regional
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Regional Finalist
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Championship Wildcard
2018 FIRST Championship (Houston)
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FedEx Innovation Challenge Winner
2018 Battleship Blast
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Competition Winner
2016 Los Angeles Regional
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Regional Finalist
2016 Arizona West Regional
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Quality Award sponsored by Motorola Solutions Foundation
2016 FIRST Championship (Houston)
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Championship Galileo Subdivision Winner
2015 Los Angeles Regional
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Regional Finalist
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Innovation in Control Award sponsored by Rockwell Automation
2014 Los Angeles Regional
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Creativity Award sponsored by Xerox
2011 Los Angeles Regional
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Regional Winner
2011 Las Vegas Regional
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Engineering Excellence Award sponsored by Delphi
2010 Los Angeles Regional
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Creativity Award sponsored by Xerox
2009 Las Vegas Regional
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Regional Finalist
2004 Southern California Regional
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Regional Finalist
“Being part of FIRST you are given a chance to tap into an amazing network of people, skills and opportunities. To have it brought together in this community where students can learn life skills and go on to do amazing things has been a game changer for a lot of people."
- TorBots alumnus and mentor Jerry Shu
TorBots Alumni: Send us your news! We're happy to pass along word of what you've been doing, where you are, what you're working on, and any recent accomplishments or important events in your life. To keep us up to date, send your news and photos to contact@team1197.com.
Masaki Asanuma (South High ’18) is currently a rising third-year at Georgia Tech (class of 2022) studying Computer Science. Since he left TorBots, he has been growing as an aspiring software engineer through challenging classes, personal projects, and hackathons.
"This aspiration all started from the moment I saw the robot move with the code that I wrote back when I was a new member at TorBots! Moving forward, I will be interning at Ultimate Software this Fall and KPMG Ignition Tokyo next Spring to gain industry experience. Aside from the tech-related activities, I have been part of the Georgia Tech Marching Band as a snare drummer and been improving my musicianship by involving myself with other musical groups."
David Cilva (South High '11) was a member of TorBots in his Junior (2009-2010) and Senior (2010-2011) years at South High. He was the driver for the robot in the 2011 season and the team won the Los Angeles Regional that year. A great achievement for all! David actively participated in local events as a member of the team to inspire younger students to join the robotics program. He was accepted to six different colleges and chose to attend Cal Poly San Luis Obispo majoring in Computer Engineering. He completed all of his classes in four years, including a capstone project for a local business. He and his team developed an app for a nursery to allow them to check inventory while walking around the grounds. He had two job offers before graduation and chose to go to Nokia in San Diego. During his tenure, Microsoft acquired that division of Nokia. He was able to then apply for other positions and was hired as a Software Engineer in the Power Point Division. He moved to Mountain View and he recently celebrated his five-year anniversary with Microsoft. He says that being on TorBots was the best part of his high school experience.
Jennie Couchman, née Van Haren, (South High ’10) was part of TorBots her junior and senior years of high school. In the 2010 season she was the team’s lead programmer, and helped them win the Creativity Award at the Los Angeles regional. Jennie went to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute for undergrad and graduated with a dual degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Systems Engineering. From there, she worked for several years in the defense and biotech industries. She now lives in London, England, and is pursuing a Ph.D. in engineering at Cambridge University. Her research focuses on tracking measurement uncertainty in biomedical signal processing algorithms.
"I consider my participation in robotics to be one of the best decisions I made in high school, and it absolutely led to where I am in my career now."
Jack Gietzen (South High ‘18) is currently In his 3rd year at El Camino College, where he is studying business. Since graduating from South High, he has kept in touch and provides assistance to our team during build season. You can find him at our local regionals helping in the Pit and cheering on our team. When he is not studying or at work, you can expect him to be playing golf, visiting his friends and family, or fixing random stuff around the house.
Nick Gietzen (South High ‘14) went on to study mechanical engineering at Cal Poly Pomona where he graduated in 2018. During his time there he started a Battle Bots team called Mortem Ex Machina. He now works for Innovative Engineering Solutions, where he designs and fabricates test setups for aerospace cryogenic systems. In his free time, Nick enjoys camping, board games, spending time with his fiancé, and he is currently working on designing an electric paddle board.
Allison Lenhard (South High ‘16) graduated from MIT in 2020 with a double major in mechanical engineering and electrical engineering and computer science. She is currently in her 2nd year of her Master’s program at MIT, where she is studying mechanical engineering. When she finishes her Master’s program, she plans on working at NASA JPL as a mechatronics engineer.
“I joined the team my freshman year, but I had a really hard time getting involved because of an arm and hand injury that kept me in casts/splints until March. After my first year, I thought I would never be able to get more involved on the team, and I almost gave up on going to the shop. It wasn’t until the end of my sophomore year that I really pushed myself to gain the skills necessary to become a valuable team member. I ended up being the president of the team my senior year, so remember that it’s never too late to get more involved! Despite my rocky start on the team, TorBots became the core of my high school experience and made it possible for me to go to MIT and be successful there. Being a robotics member gave me an edge in college and in my summer internships. I really enjoyed my time on the team, and TorBots will always hold a special place in my heart.”
Jeffrey Shen (South High '19) is studying Electrical Engineering & Computer Science at UC Berkeley (class of 2023) and pursuing a career in software engineering, hoping to use technology to improve people’s lives.
“In high school, I joined TorBots in my sophomore year and it truly changed my high school experience. I had my first experience with programming and absolutely loved that I was able to create programs just through typing. From then on, I became interested in computer science and got help in developing my first software project through TorBots. Many of the things I’ve learned while in robotics have come in handy in EECS classes I’ve taken such as closed-loop feedback, soldering, programming Arduinos, and learning to use Git. Through robotics, I got a glimpse into the world of engineering as well as the management of an engineering project. Having experience with robotics has also given me an edge in pursuing engineering endeavors such as the high school Boeing internship. If there’s any advice I could give, it would be to keep your options open and try out many different things since that’s the only way to figure out what you enjoy doing.”