Who we are

Comet Robotics at UT Dallas is a student organization with the goal of promoting robotics at UT Dallas and in the surrounding area through outreach, projects and workshops. We compete with colleges and universities across the globe in combat robotics competitions, and programs like VEX U and University Rover Challenge.

With membership open to all students regardless of major or prior experience in robotics, we provide students with the opportunity to collaborate and compete with like-minded individuals to gain experience and refine their knowledge of designing, building, and programming robots. As an organization, we aim to build and sustain an engaged body of students hoping to expand upon their coursework and gain real-world experience, developing skills in project management, leadership, teamwork, and much more.

History

Originally started with ‘The Blender’, our 120-pound, world-championship-winning BattleBot, combat robotics at UT Dallas has history going back to 2004. This club was founded in 2021 as a rebirth of the now-defunct UT Dallas BattleBots club, during which time we focused on antweight and beetleweight combat robots. Since then, we have expanded to dozens of 1lb, 3lb, and 12lb weight class combat robots, rebranding the org as Comet Robotics in summer 2023 to reflect our expanded focus with our competitive robotics division.

Org Structure

Projects are the heart of Comet Robotics, and consist of teams that work together to develop their project, helping each other and learning new skills along the way. While each project is led by one Project Manager, a project may optionally have a number of Team Leads focused on specific goals or needs of their project, like a software lead.

Each project falls under one of 2 divisions, Combat Robotics and Competitive Robotics, both of which have directors overseeing the projects and helping to address their needs. Combat Robotics encompasses our combat robot projects, while Competitive Robotics holds all remaining projects which don’t fall under the Combat Robotics roster.

The organization is led as a whole by the President, Vice President and other supporting officers, who work together to keep Comet Robotics moving and support the goals of the organization. Officers and project managers are elected positions with 1-year terms.

Leadership

General Officers

• Om Davra

  President

• Jaime Contreras

  Vice President

• Mason Thomas

  Director of Marketing

• Jason Antwi-Appah

  Director of Events

• Vacant

  Director of Finance

• Vacant

  Director of Outreach

Project Officers

• Natalie Stromberg

  Director of Combat Robotics

• Neil Blatzheim

  Director of Combat Robotics

• Colin Wong

  Director of Competitive Robotics

• Ryan Hirasaki

  Director of Competitive Robotics

Project Managers

• David Brock

  Combat Events

• Evan Wu

  SumoBots

• David von Paumgartten

  Solis Rover Project

• Jude Onyenze

  VEX U

• Dylan Brose

  ChessBots

Achievements

2023-2024

• building a bulletproof, 1000-pound, 8 ft x 8 ft x 8 ft battlebox for safely fighting combat robots up to 3lbs in mass
• competing at 12 public combat robotics competitions with 9 podium finishes
• being invited to and competing at an official BattleBots event at SXSW in March 2024 with our 15-pound combat robot, Desserts
• significant progress on prototyping/R&D for a Mars rover to compete in the University Rover Challenge
• starting a VEX U competition team, which received an invitation to compete at the VEX Robotics World Championship in its first year based on performance
• hosting 6 outreach events in collaboration with local schools, introducing over 300 middle and high schoolers to robotics and the engineering design process through our custom 3D-printed combat robotics kit, Combat Blocks