About Team Minion

Our Mission

Team Minion exists at the intersection of education and engineering ambition. Founded under the Robotics Association at Embry-Riddle (RAER), the team gives students hands-on experience with the full product development cycle: requirements definition, systems engineering, mechanical design, electrical integration, software architecture, and field testing. The goal is not just to win competitions, but to produce engineers who have shipped a complex, integrated system before they graduate.

The Maritime RobotX Challenge, organized by the AUVSI Foundation and the Office of Naval Research, is the premier unmanned maritime systems competition in the world. Teams from universities across the globe design and build autonomous surface vehicles to complete a series of increasingly difficult tasks in open water. These challenges require perception, planning, control, and mechanical reliability under conditions that expose every weakness in a system's design.

Team Minion has represented the United States in multiple RobotX cycles, building on Embry-Riddle's legacy as the only university team to compete in all major AUVSI Foundation unmanned systems competitions. That legacy includes first-place finishes at RoboBoat in 2014 and 2015, repeated top-five finishes across disciplines, and a reputation for fielding vehicles that are mechanically robust and software-capable in equal measure.

Our team is advised by Dr. Charles Reinholtz, Chair of the Mechanical Engineering Department at Embry-Riddle, whose research focus on autonomous systems and robotics has shaped the team's technical direction since its founding. The Minion autonomous surface vessel is the tangible output of that direction, a platform that has grown more capable with each competition cycle.

How We Work

The team operates out of dedicated workshop space on the Embry-Riddle campus, with access to machine shops, 3D printing facilities, and an electronics lab. A typical development cycle runs 12 to 18 months, beginning with requirements analysis after each competition and continuing through design review, fabrication, integration, and field testing at local waterways before the team ships the vehicle to the competition venue.

New members are onboarded through a structured training program that covers safety protocols, tool usage, version control, and the team's engineering standards. First-year members typically work on well-scoped subsystem tasks under the mentorship of returning students, gradually taking on larger responsibilities as they build competence. By their second year, most members are leading a subsystem or serving as a technical lead for a major component.

The team's culture emphasizes documentation and knowledge transfer. Every design decision, test result, and fabrication procedure is recorded so that institutional knowledge survives the inevitable turnover that comes with a university team. Competition debriefs are particularly thorough: every failure mode observed during a competition run is cataloged, root-caused, and assigned a corrective action that feeds into the next design cycle.

We are always looking for motivated students who want to build something real. Whether your background is in mechanical design, embedded systems, computer vision, or project management, there is meaningful work waiting. Check out the Minion platform to see what you would be working on, and visit our Newsroom for the latest updates from the team.

Student Leadership Structure

Team Minion operates under a student leadership model that mirrors the organizational structure of an aerospace engineering project office. A team president oversees operations, budget, and sponsor relationships, while a chief engineer coordinates technical direction across all subsystems. Under the chief engineer, technical leads manage the mechanical, electrical, software, and systems integration groups. Each group has three to eight members depending on the current phase of the development cycle.

Leadership positions rotate annually, giving multiple students the opportunity to develop project management and systems thinking skills. Outgoing leads mentor their successors through a formal handover process that includes a comprehensive technical brief, a review of outstanding design issues, and an introduction to key external contacts including faculty advisors and industry partners. This structured transition ensures that institutional knowledge is preserved even as the team's composition changes each academic year.

Faculty advisors from the Mechanical Engineering and Aerospace Engineering departments provide technical oversight and ensure that the team's activities align with university safety policies and academic integrity standards. Advisors attend major design reviews and competition events, offering experienced engineering perspective while preserving the student-led character of the project. The relationship between students and advisors is deliberately collaborative rather than directive: the goal is for students to own the decision-making while advisors serve as a technical sounding board.

Recruiting and Onboarding

New members are recruited through campus outreach events, RAER club fairs, and word of mouth among engineering students. Prospective members attend an informational meeting in the fall semester where they learn about the team's current projects, available roles, and the expected time commitment. The team welcomes students from all engineering disciplines and years of study, though demonstrated interest in robotics, autonomy, or hands-on engineering is an important factor in the selection process.

Accepted members begin a structured onboarding program that covers the team's design and documentation standards, safety procedures for the workshop and water testing environments, and an introduction to the subsystem they will be joining. First-semester members are paired with a returning buddy who guides them through their first tasks and helps them understand the team's workflow. This mentorship structure accelerates ramp-up and helps new members build relationships across the team before taking on independent responsibilities.

Active membership requires a minimum of eight hours per week during the main development phase, rising to 15 or more hours per week in the months before a competition. This commitment level is taken seriously: the team's ability to field a competition-ready vehicle depends on consistent participation from every member. Students who find the commitment incompatible with their academic schedule are encouraged to remain engaged in a supporting role until they can increase their availability.

Community and Outreach

Team Minion participates in university outreach events throughout the academic year, bringing Minion and other demonstration hardware to campus engineering expos, high school visits, and STEM outreach programs in the Daytona Beach area. These events give the team's members practice communicating complex technical topics to general audiences, a skill that consistently pays dividends in job interviews and professional settings after graduation.

The team has also hosted visiting groups from local middle and high schools, providing hands-on demonstrations of the vessel's autonomous navigation capabilities in the campus's outdoor testing pond. Seeing a fully autonomous vehicle navigate a waypoint course without human input is a reliably effective way to spark interest in robotics and engineering among students who might not yet have considered an engineering career.

Our alumni network includes engineers now working at defense contractors, autonomous systems startups, and research institutions across the country. Many remain actively connected to the team as mentors and advisors, contributing technical expertise and career guidance to current members. The relationships built during time on Team Minion often outlast the competition years and become an important professional network for graduates entering the autonomous systems industry.