About Us

Team 7128 (aka XLR8) started their first build season at Swinburne University of Technology in 2018 (see our Blue Alliance page for our full FRC competition history).  Their entrance into the competition made them one of only three Victorian team to participate in FRC that year.  Pre-COVID they competed in either the Southern Cross or South Pacific Regionals in Sydney. They are a mixed gender team. XLR8 have been working out of the KIOSC Trade Training Centre in Wantirna South since 2019. KIOSC provides us access to a fully equipped VET trade training workshop. Team meetings and workshops are held at KIOSC.

The FRC build season is from January to mid-March. The days and times of workshop sessions during build season vary depending on the stage of the build season and team member/mentor availability. During the off-season (March to December) the team meets regularly for workshop sessions.

The team members come from a wide range of educational backgrounds including public, private and home-schooled team members. Our team members largely come from eastern Melbourne metropolitan and regional areas. We accept high school aged team members (i.e., 12-18) from all over Victoria.  7128 is a gender diverse LGBTIQA+ friendly team.

The team’s management and finances are overseen by an incorporated committee “Melbourne XLR8 Robotics Club Inc” (A0118539G). Committee members consist of XLR8 Mentors and Alumni. Should the team be wound-up our assets will be distributed to the Victorian FRC community.

7128 competes at the Sydney Southern Cross Regional (mid-March) and at the Melbourne Robotics Tournament (MRT) in early July. FRC events run over 3 days (Fri/Sat/Sun).

Our team Handbook, Risk Management and Child Protection Policies are available on request.

XLR8 Team history

XLR8’s Rookie year was 2018. The team was started by Swinburne University of Technology staff and based at their Hawthorn campus. That year we were awarded the Rookie Inspiration Award at South Pacific Regionals (2018).  We were also part of the winning Regional alliance and qualified to go to the World Championships in Houston.  Eleven team members and their families traveled to compete in Houston.

In 2019 the team moved to KIOSC at Swinburne University’s Wantirna campus where they are still located today. At KIOSC the team has access to a Trade workshop significantly boosting the teams capability to do their own metalwork. The team took a very capable, albeit fragile robot, to the Southern Cross Regionals in 2019.  The team managed to become very good at scoring points and although we missed out on a finals berth, the team continued to build on their reputation for Gracious Professionalism. In addition, the Safety judges were very impressed by our pit management and pit behaviour.

The team built a second robot for the off season Duel Down Under (DDU) competition in July 2019. The team were very happy to have helped their 7^th ranked alliance team to the semi-finals in the DDU competition.

In 2020 we felt we built a very capable little robot that could pick up balls and climb the hanger. However, Regionals were cancelled due to COVID and we missed out competing with that robot.  We did not register for the competition in 2021 due to fears about disruptions due to COVID.

In 2022 we returned with another capable little bot (aka “Stewie”) that was able to pick up balls from the floor and reliably score into the high hub from a fixed region.  We were second pick of the 6^th ranked alliance but our alliance bowed out in the first round.

In 2023 we were faced with the challenge of picking up square ‘beachballs’ and traffic cones. We aimed to solve this challenge with the least amount of complexity, which we felt we did, using a single piston mechanism to pick up pieces and a simple winch to raise our arm. Our robot (aka “Gregory”) was not mechanically complex, but managed to score with game pieces at low, mid and high points. 2023 also marked our foray into more complex programming challenges with the robot able to identify its location on the field with the newly introduced April tags. We played in finals with the 6th ranked Alliance team and won the Creativity Award for our innovative drive station dashboard. Other points of note in our 2023 season was giving a presentation to our major sponsor Rockwell Automation and providing volunteers for the FIRST Lego League Competition Regionals and various educational events at KIOSC. XLR8 team members and alumni also volunteer at the Melbourne Robotics Tournament (MRT) held in Victorian School Holidays. See the Blue Alliance for our team’s FRC history.