Jonas Zaleckas
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World championship robot

Built for the FIRST World Championship in Houston. Third for the Inspire Award in the Jemison Division and part of the finalist alliance.

Role
Mechanical lead
Team
FTC 24500 LITBOT
Competition
FIRST World Championship · JemisonInto the Deep season, 2024–25
World championship robot
One-line caption: what this is and when it was taken.

The problem

Two sentences on the hard constraint this machine had to beat. Size envelope, cycle time, weight, reach, reliability — whatever was genuinely difficult. Not “we had to score points”: the specific limit that shaped the design.

What I designed

  • Subsystem one — what it is, and the mechanism you chose for it.
  • Subsystem two — same. Name the part, not the project.
  • Subsystem three — the interesting one.

Be specific about your own contribution, and about where it ended and someone else's began — the credits panel says who they were.

How it was made

Materials, manufacturing, iteration count. Printed vs machined vs off-the-shelf, and why. If you ran an analysis or a test to pick between two options, this is where that goes.

What went wrong

One honest paragraph. What broke, when it broke, what you changed, and what you would do differently now. This is the section recruiters and professors actually stop on — it is the part that cannot be faked. Do not soften it.

Result

Award or outcome — you already have: Worlds, Jemison Division — Inspire 3rd & Finalist Alliance. Add the operational side too: matches played, reliability, ranking.

Gallery
CAD assembly — World championship robot
Full assembly in CAD. Caption: what the render is showing and why that layout.
Cascading belt-driven linear lift, four stages, partially extended
The one mechanism you are proudest of, close up. Caption: what it does and what made it hard.
In context — World championship robot
On the competition floor, with people or a field element for scale.
Drivetrain side assembly mid-build — laser-cut plywood plate with motors and mecanum wheels fitted
Mid-build, a machining setup, or the failed version next to the fixed one. Optional — delete this figure if you have nothing good.