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SFU's Ascension Robotics Club recently returned from an impressive performance at the 2025 RoboMaster University League – North America Competition, held in San Diego, California this past June.

The team proudly emerged as the top-ranked Canadian team, placing 4^th in the 1v1 Battle and 5^th place in the 3v3 Battle.

The highly competitive event brings together top engineering and robotics teams from across the continent to participate in a series of competitions and academic exchange. The RoboMaster program aims to foster the next generation of engineers and highlight the potential of technological innovation to audiences worldwide.

SFU Ascension’s performance surpassed several well-established competitors, including teams from Duke University, Texas A&M, Penn State, UBC, McMaster and the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

Team Composition

Led by Edison Wang, the team comprises of 10 undergraduate students from SFU’s Mechatronic Systems Engineering (MSE). Over the past year, the students collaborated to design, build and optimize three competitive battle robots to meet RoboMaster’s rigorous engineering and strategic challenges.

Their efforts were supported by:

• Faculty Advisors: MSE professors Jason Jiacheng Wang and Farshid Najafi and MSE lecturer Ramtin Rakhsha
• Technical Mentors: MSE laboratory technicians, Kasra Shafizadeh, Arthur Liao and Taha Al-Khudairi

Event Highlights

A standout moment for the team was their decisive 2:0 victory over Texas A&M, showcasing strong coordination, effective autonomous systems and precise mechanical execution. The team is already preparing for RoboMaster 2026, with plans to improve their machine learning-based autonomous shooting and dodging algorithms, as well as upgrade mechanical systems for increased performance and durability. SFU Ascension extends its sincere appreciation to the generous donors and sponsors whose support made this experience possible. Their contributions have been instrumental in funding materials, travel and competition logistics.