Space Taters

2025/2026 Season - UNEARTHED

Space Taters launched their rookie year by stepping into the shoes of archaeologists. From exploring challenges for archaeologists to inventing a heating and cooling jacket for their innovation project, they combined creativity, research, and coding to complete the archaeology-themed season. Starting as a team of all new members, most meeting for the very first time, they quickly grew into a collaborative, resilient, and determined group.

Innovation Project

Climate-Control Jacket:

Our team wanted to help archaeologists deal with extreme desert temperatures. We researched what they already do, brainstormed lots of ideas, and finally designed a reversible jacket that can heat or cool the wearer using water tubes, a battery, and solar panels. The jacket is made with materials that wick moisture and control temperature, and we even thought about using carbon to cool and copper to warm. It was a lot of fun putting our design together, and we hope it could really make fieldwork safer and more comfortable!

Once we had our jacket design, we made a mockup to show how it would work. We built a simple version using tubes and materials to demonstrate the heating and cooling idea, then practiced explaining it as a team. Presenting to the judges was exciting—we each shared what we learned, talked about the challenges we considered, and showed how our jacket could help archaeologists in extreme heat or cold.

Robot Game

Unearthed Game:

As a rookie team, we learned how to build and code our robot by going through SPIKE training camps and getting tips from our FTC mentor, Eli. We started with the basic robot base, but decided to switch to the advanced base so we could add more attachments. Everyone picked missions they wanted to work on. Some looked easier, some let us do more than one in a run, and some just looked fun!

We built and tested attachments for missions like:

Surface Brushing (1)
Who Lived Here? (5)
Forge (6)
What’s on Sale? (9)
Tip the Scales (10)
Salvage Operation (12)

We practiced our coding and attachment designs over and over, tested them in different ways, and put our runs together for matches. Sometimes it didn’t go perfectly, but we got a high score of 150 and placed 10th at our first event. The robot was our favorite part of FIRST Lego League, and we’re excited to keep improving next year!