September 23, 2026 · Piedmont Makers
A record 85 students joined Highlander Robotics this season, 45 of them rookies, so the program is launching a second FIRST Robotics Competition team.
Highlander Robotics started the 2026-27 season with 85 students, the biggest roster in the program’s history. Forty-five of them are rookies. That is more kids than one robot can keep busy, so Highlander is launching a second FIRST Robotics Competition team: Team 8033 now has a sibling, Team 8433.
An FRC team builds one 120-pound robot a season. With 85 students on a single team, plenty of them would spend build season watching over someone else’s shoulder. Two teams means two robots, and twice as many chances for students to design parts, fabricate them, and drive the finished machine on the field. For the 45 first-year students, that is the difference between hearing about the work and doing it.
Names, branding, and the rest of the details for the new team are still coming together, and we’ll share them here as they land. For now, we’re celebrating the milestone: more East Bay high schoolers building competition robots than ever before.
Families curious about high school robotics can find more on our robotics page.