About Us

Since its founding in 2014, Retriever Robotics has evolved into a premier student-led engineering organization at UMBC. The team began competing in the VEX U collegiate circuit in 2017 and has since established a legacy of excellence, consistently qualifying for the VEX Robotics World Championship. Each season, our members design, build, and program multiple robots to overcome new strategic challenges. Our commitment to the engineering design process has earned the team numerous honors, including recent Design Awards and a successful qualification for the 2026 World Championships.

More information about VEX U is available at https://recf.org/teams/vex-u/.

 

 

Two individuals embrace while standing in a large hall at a robotics competition, with a large, orange, inflatable T-Rex standing in the background.

An individual, wearing glasses and a hoodie, works at a crowded table, writing in a notebook with a pen at a busy event.

Spectators watch a custom VEX robot positioned within a field with checkerboard boundaries at an indoor competition.

A person with their hair in a braid uses a power drill to attach a red UMBC plate to the side of a VEX robot.

An individual wearing a UMBC jersey uses needle-nose pliers to adjust the complex mechanisms of a VEX robot.

Two custom-built VEX robots, each with an UMBC license plate, compete on a game field marked with blue and red game objects.

A complex, all-metal VEX robot sits on a table, featuring two red UMBC license plates attached to its frame.

A VEX robot featuring a built-in conveyor belt and multiple structural components sits on a workshop floor.