TechHOUNDs, the robotics team, received its season objective on Jan. 4. According to sponsor George Giltner, there’s a change in point scoring this year. TechHOUNDs member and sophomore Tiger Huang said he is excited to begin building.

Giltner and the TechHOUNDs team met up over winter break to watch the live-stream objective video. “This season, we have to build a robot that can pick up a 24-inch radius exercise ball and shoot it into a 7-foot goal. We had a game back in 2008 with the same concept, so this is kind of a repeat,” Giltner said.

However, the scoring system is different. Giltner said, “They changed it well. The difference is that now you can be awarded for passing the game piece from one robot to another before you score, which is called an assist.”

TechHOUNDs is currently drafting and designing its prototype design on the computer.

According to Huang, the team is currently in its brainstorming stage. Huang said, “We split up the building duties by splitting the robot into component and different divisions and each make a specific part.”

The first TechHOUNDs competition is on March 6 at the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology.