Founding
Our team was founded in December 1997 as Team Themis (#154) by four Mills High School students: Eric Park, Bill Allan, Francis Hahn, and Gilbert Lip. At its founding, the team had about 10 student members and a few teacher mentors, and fell short of the $4000 required for registration by the deadline due to its late founding. In 1999, the team re-registered, the number changed to #253, and the team renamed themselves to the Mills Robotics Team, with a total membership of 38 members and raised enough to compete in our first competition (NASA Ames Regional), where we won the Judges’ Award.
In 2000, we attended the NASA Ames Regional again, where we also won the Judges’ Award. In the following years, we attended the Silicon Valley Regional and won the Imagery Award in 2002 and the Autodesk Visualization Award in 2004.
The team continued steadily for many years, but interest in the team eventually declined. By 2012, the team was back to having less than 10 members, and the business department had no members - the team was once again struggling to raise enough money to survive. However, in the 2013-14 season, a sophomore revamped the nonexistent operations department, reviving the team through an increased budget and school outreach. By 2016, the team had about 30 members, and was able to attend an offseason competition in addition to their yearly regional!
How We Became The Boba Bots
Completely reinventing our brand in 2018 (to the Boba Bots) allowed us to create a new team image that reflected our culture and emphasized our mission, “to create a safe, welcoming, and spirited environment for youth in our community to develop their interests in engineering and leadership.” As such, when we designed our new branding, we specifically chose an inclusive, gender-neutral, and kid friendly brand.
Rebranding to the Boba Bots, changing our team leadership structure, developing a new curriculum, and more allowed us to continue to promote sustainability.
These changes led to a massive growth in community interest and member count. Our social media posts, team logo, robot, pit design, and merchandise all focus around boba. Through our branding, the idea of enjoying boba tea together has become the embodiment of the inclusivity and close bond shared between members of our team. Our inclusive brand appeals to people of all interests and skill sets, not just in science and technology. The boba image, team name, and the bright and vibrant color scheme also communicates our inclusivity of all sexualities and gender identities. In 2018, we won the Judges’ Award at San Francisco Regional. In 2019, we won the Team Spirit Award at Monterey Bay Regional and the Imagery Award at CalGames. In 2020, we won the Imagery Award at CalGames! Then, in 2022, we won the Imagery Award at CalGames again!
World Championships 2019
On April 15th of 2019 the Boba Bots embarked on a five day trip to the FIRST World Championships in Houston, Texas. The event; a culmination of the team’s hard work for the past several months, brought hundreds of teams from around the world together to compete for the world championship title. The Boba Bots did phenomenally at the event, facing fierce competition and ultimately ranking thirty-first place out of their division. Additionally, this was the team’s first time attending a championship event since 1999, when the championships were still held at DisneyWorld in Orlando Florida.
Not only did the Boba Bots perform well at the competition, but many of the members spent time at the Innovation Faire, an event that went on within the championships, absorbing knowledge from the numerous companies that had set up booths and exhibits about their product or technological developments. At the Faire, students got to learn from several colleges and universities about their programs, and many got to experience virtual reality for the first time.
On top of the educational opportunities, the championships provided members with an opportunity to become closer to one another. Many students spent several hours playing games with each other after each day of competition. The team also watched anime and attended “RoboProm”, a substitute to regular prom as championships took place at the same time. Throughout the event, members of the team formed close bonds and learned to work more closely.
The Boba Bots did very well throughout the entirety of their season and the 2019 World Champions was a perfect closeout to their landmark season that signified a major shift in momentum for the Boba Bots.
