Our Team

We are a 8-person FTC team in Foster City, California with an intense passion for robotics. Our team is fully student-run, meaning that the members handle the design and building aspects of the robot as well as the finances and logistics. We believe that being student-driven allows us to have more control of our team and pushes us to work for our goals.

We value simplicity and iterative design as our core design principles, aiming to have a well-tested robot before every competition.

Christina Li

Christina is a senior at San Mateo High School, and this is her third year on Vulcan Robotics. Christina has developed skills in CAD and mechanical and is currently building programming experience on the team. This year, she aims to focus on learning more about programming to contribute to the robot code. In her free time, Christina likes playing chess with friends, learning new songs on guitar, and drawing in her sketchbook. She also loves listening to all genres of music — her current favorite artists are Stone Temple Pilots, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and Sonic Youth.

Alan Su

Alan is a junior at San Mateo High School, and this is his third season at Vulcan Robotics. He has previously been mechanical lead in another FTC robotics team in the Freight Frenzy season, which was his first robotics experience. Currently, Alan is working on the mechanical subteam, but is also hoping to gain some programming experience. Outside of robotics, his primary hobby is playing baseball, but also likes playing chess and loves a challenge in math.

Alice Wang

Alice is an 9th grader at San Mateo Highschool, and this is her second year on Vulcan Robotics. She is looking forward to helping out on the CAD and mechanical sub-teams and expanding her basic knowledge of coding. She is excited to assist her new teammates and learn more on just about anything robotics! In her free time, Alice loves drawing, chatting with friends, listening to music and reading online.

Zara Louie-Der

Zara is a freshman at San Mateo highshool, and this is her second year on Vulcan Robotics. In this season, Zara is looking forward to helping the team in mechanical and CAD aspects as Mech Lead. Zara also aims to gain new experience in outreach and business aspects of the team. Apart from robotics, Zara enjoys crocheting, hanging out with friends, gaming, and swimming. She looks forward to a successful season!

Navya Sinha

Navya is a junior at Hillsdale High School, and this is her second year on the team. Currently, she works in the mechanical team, and organizes events and meetings in the outreach team. This year, she is looking forward to contribute and learn in the programming team. In her free time, Navya enjoys playing the piano and saxophone, hiking, and watching the Great British Baking Show.

Dan Ngyuen

Dan Nguyen is a freshman at Design Tech Highschool and this is his first year on the team! He has little experience with robotics but is excited to learn a lot in this new community and develop his skillset in the area. Dan enjoys working on many things in the team but would like to focus on his experience in CAD and mechanical. When he’s not in the garage, he enjoys playing soccer, performing on stage in theater productions, and learning different songs on the piano. He also loves listening to many genres of music, such as Korean R&B and indie J-pop rock.

Sara Chiguchi

Sara Chiguchi is a freshman at Aragon Highschool and this marks her first year on Vulcan Robotics. She has experience with 3D printing and is excited to learn all about robotics this year. She aims to contribute to the CAD and programming sub-teams. In her freetime she loves to run, play video games (Hollow Knight and Minecraft), and cube. She enjoys the listening to artists such as AJR, Chappell Roan, and Boywithuke.

Alexa Li

Alexa is a freshman at San Mateo High, starting her first year at Vulcan and the FTC world. As a robotics newbie, aside from eating sour patch kids during meetings, works mostly on outreach, contacting organizations, companies, and arranging volunteer opportunities. She hopes to learn more about CAD and contribute to mechanical. In her free time she likes to eat Trader Joe’s chicken shawarma bowls, pet stray cats, and argue with her dog.

Eric Zhang

Eric has been on Vulcan for two years and is currently a senior at San Mateo High School. In his free time, Eric enjoys swimming and water polo, and also going on campouts to scenic State parks.

Andrew Qin

Andrew Qin was on Vulcan for two years and was business/outreach lead in his last year. He is currently studying physics at UC Berkely. Outside of robotics, he enjoys a good old game of soccer, listening to music, weight training and learning physics.

Soham Patil

During Soham’s three years on Vulcan, he has been programming lead and co-captain in his last year. He currently attends UCLA for mathematicals of computation. In his free time, Soham enjoys learning about AI, playing volleyball, listening to music, and stepping out of his comfort zone.

Caroline Wei

Caroline was on Vulcan for 4 years and was business lead in her last year. She currently attends UCLA in applied mathematics. During her free time, Caroline enjoys playing the violin, badminton, baking, and volunteering with the Red Cross.

Seth San Miguel

Seth currently attends UCSC for CS. During his last year at Vulcan, he focused on the electrical and mechanical teams. Seth enjoys tutoring kids at Mathnasium, conducting cognitive science research, hanging out with friends and family, playing volleyball, eating, and listening to music.

Mathew Zheng

Mathew is currently at University of Michigan . For his fourth and final year at Vulcan, he took on the positions of Co-Captain and Electrical Lead, and contributed as a core member of the programming team. In his free time, Mathew enjoys playing volleyball, performing music with his friends, and learning new things.

Harry Wang

Harry is currently at Duke University, majoring in Neroscience. He was the Co-Captain and mechanical lead for the 2022-2023 PowerPlay season. In his free time, Harry swims, plays water polo, and does triathlons. He’s come to enjoy listening to jazz on his car rides and while doing work.

Anna Guo

Anna was on Vulcan for three years and was co-captain in her senior year. She worked extensively on mechanical, engineering notebook, outreach, and finances. Outside of robotics, she enjoys giving back to the community and organizing events to promote STEM education. She’ll miss Vulcan’s tight-knit community, but is excited for her next chapter at UCLA. She also promised to come visit us whenever she is in town and to get us all UCLA hoodies.

Leon Kwuak

Leon was on Vulcan for 4 years. In his last year, he was co-captain and worked on mechanical aspects of the robot as well as trying to balance things on hex keys and was part of the team’s drive team during competitions. His kendama collection could end world hunger. Boston University is a lucky school to get to have this dude’s soft hands on campus.

Jason Wang

Jason was on Vulcan Robotics for 2 years, and was team captain his last year. Jason contributed heavily to the engineering aspects of the robot, and is taking his leadership skills to Berkeley in 2019.

Pranav Viswanathan

Pranav was on Vulcan for 3 years, and was co-captain during his senior year on the team. He led the team in scouting and business, and worked extensively on the engineering notebook. He also contributed to the mechanical aspects of our robot.

Max Li

Max was in charge of CADing custom parts for the robot during his last year on Vulcan. Max helped the team overcome many engineering challenges through iterative design.

Alton Olson

Alton had 2 years of experience in FRC and 3 in FTC. In 2014, he switched to FTC only and helped start Vulcan. He was extremely passionate about robotics and always wishes for our success to continue!

Anna Zheng

Anna was on Vulcan Robotics for two years. She helped build and test the past robots and worked extensively on the engineering notebook, sponsorships, organization and logistics.

Frank Liu

Frank was on Vulcan for 2 years and enjoys traveling, music, and research. He was the electrical and scouting lead for Vulcan during his 4th year.

Horace He

Horace had experience in competitive programming, competing in contests such as USACO Gold and Stanford ProCo. 2014 was his first on a robotics team, and he was our main programmer for the season. He loved to write, test, and debug the robot’s code each year.

Josh Pollock

In his first year on a robotics team, Josh designed the electrical system on the robot and helped with organization and logistics.

Justin Lee

Former FLL, FTC, and FRC team member, Justin transferred from another robotics team to help start Vulcan last season. Justin was heavily involved in all the moving parts of the robot.

Kiki Lo

Kiki was on Vulcan for 2 years. She was the engineering notebook and sponsorships lead during her 4th year. Outside of robotics, she enjoys swimming and volunteering.

Louis Villa

Louis, one of the team’s founding members, had completed two years of FLL and two years of FRC. In his junior year summer, he interned with a mechanical engineer in the 3D printing industry.

Prateek Tenkale

Prateek was on Vulcan for 3 years and was the captain and mechanical lead of the team during his third year. Prior to Vulcan, he was on an FLL team and was a mentor of a team that participated in the World Robot Olympiad (WRO) Elementary School competition.

Sahith Bhamidipati

Sahith was on Vulcan for 2 years. He had previous experience programming for FIRST robotics, and was the programmer during his second year. His hobbies are computer science, robotics, tennis, and music.

Sethmi Kachchakaduge

Sethmi was with the team for two years. Sethmi was dedicated to exposing young women to the art of computer science and has had a passion for STEM at a young age. She facilitated a Girls Who Code club in her city and is a mentor and liasion for Stanford’s Girls Teaching Girls to Code Program. She mainly contributed to the design and finance aspects of the team.

Timon Littleford

Timon has competed with Vulcan for two years and was the captain his second year on the team. In addition, Timon has also competed in FRC and FLL on numerous teams.

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