Pyroneers · FRC Team 10261 · AthensCase study by Iasonas (Jason) Andreadis
2024 – 2026 · First Greek team in FRC

Seven students built Greece’s first FRC robot and won the Creativity Award at its first event.

I’m Iasonas Andreadis. In July 2024, six friends and I started Pyroneers to bring the FIRST Robotics Competition to Greece. Our first robot, Hephaestus, won the Creativity Award at the Haliç Regional in Istanbul in March 2025. I worked on the code, the CAD and finding sponsors.

Robot 10261, with black flame-printed panels and blue bumpers, on the REEFSCAPE field during a match
Hephaestus on the REEFSCAPE field at the Haliç Regional, 2025. Photo: Pyroneers.
1stGreek team to compete in FRC
1Creativity Award, Haliç Regional 2025
2months to design, build and code the robot
€6Krobot cost, all raised from sponsors
01 / Story

Why we started

Most of us met through FIRST LEGO League as kids. I was on the team that placed 2nd at the Western Edge FIRST LEGO League Open in California in 2023, and in 2024 I was on Greece’s national team at the FIRST Global Challenge in Athens.

The FIRST Robotics Competition is the biggest of the FIRST programs, but no Greek team had ever entered it. In the summer of 2024, seven of us decided to try. It wasn’t one person’s idea. We were friends first and a team second. The name started as a joke on “Pioneers”, with “pyro” for the spark, and our logo is a flame and a gear.

We started as an independent team, not a school club, with no big company behind us. Three adult coaches, aged 19 to 20, helped us: Antonis Lekkas, Vasilis Gkizas and Stathis Konstantinou. Our parents drove us, found materials and helped find space. Our families gave us a heated workshop. The 2025 game, REEFSCAPE, was announced in early January 2025, and we had two months to design, build and program the robot before Istanbul.

What was hard

  • MoneyNo large company funded us. The robot cost about €6,000, and we raised all of it from three sponsors: RAFARM, ADAM C.S. and Cubitech. The Municipality of Kallithea also supported us.
  • PartsWe had limited access to FRC equipment and parts in Greece.
  • UnitsFRC designs are in inches. We work in metric, so we had to convert them to centimetres.
  • LanguageAt the event we sometimes had to communicate with other teams by gestures.
  • DamageHephaestus is heavy and got damaged during the competition. We left Istanbul with a damaged robot and an award.
02 / Robot

Hephaestus, REEFSCAPE 2025

CAD render of the robot: square chassis with red bumpers, a vertical lift frame and an angled intake on top
CAD of Hephaestus. The team designed every mechanism in Onshape to be modular, so the programmers could write code before the robot was finished.

The robot had four mechanisms: a swerve drivetrain, a custom lift, a passive intake and an outtake. The judges’ citation for the Creativity Award pointed to the intake, which was a simple, cheap solution.

Spec sheet · team figures
Season2025, REEFSCAPE
Build time2 months
CostAbout €6,000
Weight51 kg
Size75 × 75 × 102 cm
DrivetrainMAXSwerve
MechanismsSwerve drive, custom lift, passive intake, outtake
Motors (11)4 NEO Vortex (drive) · 4 NEO 550 (swerve) · 2 CIM (lift) · 1 NEO (outtake)
CodeJava, WPILib
VisionRaspberry Pi 5, Pi Camera v3, PhotonVision
CADOnshape
A team member drilling a metal part at a bench drill press in the workshop
Making parts in the workshop.
The partly built robot on sawhorses, showing the lift frame, chain and wiring
Lift and wiring, mid-build.
A team member at a laptop next to the drivetrain on a bench, running code
Testing code on the drivetrain.
The 2025 Creativity Award trophy and the Haliç Regional plaque in front of a Greek flag
2025 Creativity Award, Haliç Regional.

Photos: Pyroneers team site.

03 / Results

By the numbers

Season 1 · 7–9 March 2025

Haliç Regional, Istanbul

Award
Creativity Award
sponsored by Rockwell Automation
Rank
39 of 50 after qualification matches
Record
4 wins, 5 losses
Playoffs
Not selected
Season 2 · 6–8 March 2026

Bosphorus Regional

Award
None
Rank
31 of 33 after qualification matches
Record
4 wins, 8 losses
Playoffs
Not selected
7students on the 2025 team
3adult coaches
2seasons, 2 robots
21official matches played (9 + 12)
3sponsors, which paid for the robot
~10 ha week I put in estimate

Match results and ranks are from FIRST’s official event records. Robot cost, weight and build time are the team’s own figures. Rankings come from matches played with randomly assigned alliance partners. The Creativity Award is a judged award.

Team members in black flame jackets sitting on the floor of the pit around the robot, which has red bumpers marked 10261
In the pit at competition.
Team members in black Pyroneers shirts holding tools and a laptop beside toolboxes and a sawhorse. I am on the far right, by the tool cart.
The team with its tools. I’m on the far right.
04 / Findings

What I learned

  1. Simple beat clever

    The judges singled out our passive intake because it was simple and cheap. With two months and €6,000, a mechanism with fewer parts to break was worth more to us than one that did more.

  2. Modular CAD saves weeks

    Because each mechanism was designed as its own module, the code could be written while the robot was still being built. With a two-month window, that let the code and the hardware move forward at the same time.

  3. Judged and played are different scores

    In 2025 we won a top judged award and ranked 39 of 50 in matches. In 2026 we ranked 31 of 33 and won nothing. Good design doesn’t automatically make a robot win matches, and I try not to describe one as the other.

  4. Money comes before metal

    Sponsors paid for every part of the robot. Finding them was part of the engineering work, because without them there was nothing to build.

05 / Timeline

How it went

  1. Western Edge FIRST LEGO League Open, Long Beach, California: 2nd overall and 2nd in the Robot Game with team iRobot.Before Pyroneers · my team

  2. FIRST Tech Challenge Greece, CENTERSTAGE season: Motivate Award (1st) and Design Award (2nd) with team 24966 Suited Penguins.Before Pyroneers · my team

  3. Seven of us start Pyroneers in Athens.

  4. FIRST Global Challenge in Athens. I compete on Greece’s national team.Me, separate from Pyroneers

  5. Ta Nea reports that Pyroneers is the first Greek team accepted into FRC.

  6. The REEFSCAPE game is announced. Two-month design and build begins.

  7. Haliç Regional, Istanbul. Greece’s first FRC event: Creativity Award, rank 39 of 50.

  8. Team members meet the Minister of Digital Governance and the then Minister for Social Cohesion and Family to talk about funding and equipment for Greek robotics teams.

  9. Bosphorus Regional with our second robot: rank 31 of 33.

  10. I’m not competing this season, after two seasons on the team.

06 / Credit

What I did, what the team did

What I did personally

  • Co-founded the team with six friends in July 2024. The idea was all of ours, not mine alone.
  • Worked on the robot code.
  • Worked on the CAD.
  • Helped find the team’s sponsors.
  • Competed with the team in both seasons, 2025 and 2026.
  • Put in about 10 hours a week estimate

What the team did

  • The students on the team designed, built, wired and programmed both robots together. Others worked on the code and CAD alongside me.
  • Three adult coaches, Antonis Lekkas, Vasilis Gkizas and Stathis Konstantinou, mentored us.
  • Our sponsors RAFARM, ADAM C.S. and Cubitech paid for the robot. The Municipality of Kallithea also supported us.
  • Our parents and families handled transport and materials and gave us a workshop.

The Creativity Award went to the whole team, not to me. I wasn’t on the FTC team that won Greece’s 2024 FTC championship, which some press about Pyroneers mentions.