About the team
We are the South Dakota Mines Rocker Robotics Team — a multidisciplinary group of students who design, build, and program a new competition machine every year.
A student team, building from scratch
Every year we pick a competition, then design, build, and program a machine to enter it — mechanical, electrical, and software, all in house.
Because our robots are built from the frame up, the work reaches into nearly every discipline on campus, and every major is welcome on the team. No experience is required to start: turn up to a meeting or a workday and we will find you something to build.
We are part of the South Dakota Mines CAMP program, and we thank them for their support.
Design in the fall, compete in the spring
Design starts during the fall semester and competition follows in the spring. In between are the workdays: machining and fabrication, wiring, CAD revisions, and software.
Alongside the competition robot there are seasonal builds — most visibly the trebuchet we bring to the Great Downtown Pumpkin Festival.
The competitions we enter
We compete in many different syles of competition from a 3lb to an autonomous submarine.
Intelligent Ground Vehicle Competition
A fully autonomous ground vehicle that has to hold a lane, avoid obstacles, and drive itself to GPS waypoints with nobody at the controls. Lidar, stereo vision, and two years of entries.
See the IGVC robotsNational Robotics Challenge
A 20 lb autonomous sumobot: find the opponent somewhere in the ring, and push it out. No driver, no remote — it has to work out the match on its own.
See Sumobot 2025RoboSub
Our first autonomous underwater vehicle, taking the team below the surface for the first time and into a new class of competition. This is the machine we are building now.
Details coming soonASME Student Design Series
Small purpose-built machines run against teams from across the region at the ASME E-Fest engineering festival.
See the photosRobots in front of people
We take part in outreach whenever we can. That has meant demos at middle school events, festivals, and Mines events.
It is some of the best work we do. A robot on the floor of a school gym draws more questions in an afternoon than a poster ever will.
See what we do
Officers and advisors
Come to a meeting and these are the people you will meet first.
- President Devon Hamm
- Vice President Dean Morgan
- Treasurer Dale Burks
- Secretary Gavin Fisher
- Historian Chris Bayer
- Outreach Reese Hammerquist
- Safety Aria Lane
- Advisor Reza Mehrabian
Join our team
No experience required, and nothing to apply for. Turn up and say hello.
When we meet
- Meetings Thursdays, 4:04 pm — M306
- Workdays Wednesdays, 5:00 pm
- Saturdays, 12:00 pm
Where to find us
Our main lab is McLaury 101, with a second lab in McLaury 107. Stop by and check us out — on a workday there is almost always someone in there.
See the labsGet in touch
Questions before you come along? Email the team, or find us on Discord and at the fall org fair.
Email the teamCome join us
Turn up to a meeting or a workday, tell us what you are curious about, and we will put a tool in your hand.