Who are we?

Pioneer Robotics, also known as Team #1076, the PiHi Samurai, is the Pioneer High School robotics team in Ann Arbor, Michigan. We have more than 60 students on the team this year and compete in the FIRST Robotics Competition: an international challenge where high schoolers are tasked to design, fabricate, program, test, and fundraise for a brand new robot all within the span of 8 weeks! This will be our 20th year of competing, and with the water-themed game for 2025, Reefscape, we will be shore to make a splash this season!

What does the season look like?

While our robotics team is active for the whole year, the competition season starts the first Saturday each January. Our strategy subteam analyzes the rules of the brand new game and looks for the best way to play the game, both as a team and as a robot. After this, the design subteam takes the analysis given by strategy and turns it into a 3D model. This model, along with drawings, are given to the mechanical, software, and electrical subteams in order to create the robot in the real world and send it to competitions. The imagery, finance, and marketing subteams all work throughout the entire year to create graphic designs, fundraise, and also perform community outreach!

Why do we need donations?

For the next four weeks, we have a wonderful opportunity from an anonymous donor! They will be matching every cent we earn up to $10,000. Building a competitive robot is expensive and we have a big enough team that even feeding or bussing all of us adds up significantly. Our goal is to get the entire matching amount.

The 2024 competition season was our most successful season in team history—we were in the top 50 teams in the state of Michigan and made it to Worlds, the FIRST Championship FIRST in Houston, with the top 600 teams in the world. Over the course of a whole year, including 2 district competitions, the state level competition at SVSU, and the FIRST Championship in Houston, we will need to spend between $80-90,000 in total. This is a lot of money, and we are working to improve our fundraising efforts as our team matures.

For 2025, we will be headed to our first district competition in St. Joseph, Michigan on March 6th. This event alone will cost somewhere near $6,000 for bussing, hotels, food, and other costs. Going to the states competition, if we qualify, would cost an additional $7,000, including an additional registration fee. Additionally, we also need to finance the creation of the robot, which is the most important part!

Pioneer Robotics Boosters is a 501(c)(3) public charity
EIN 99-4919445

Donation Rewards

Aluminum Level: $250+

Name on Website, Shirt, and Robot¹
Occasional team update emails

Stainless Steel Level: $500+

All perks of the previous level
Social media shoutout to all families at the beginning of competitions (early March)

Copper Level: $1000+

All perks of the previous levels
Name on Pit Banner and Trailer¹

Carbon Fiber Level: $2000+

All perks of the previous levels
Prominent name on website, shirt, and pits, trailer, and robot¹

Titanium Level: $3000+

All perks of the previous levels
Negotiable reward from the team

Your name could be your name or "in memory of...", we will contact you if you meet any requirements for a title of your choosing

Help Fund Pioneer Robotics