About US

The Hedgehogs

Team 587, The Hedgehogs are a high school robotics team comprised of students from Orange High and Cedar Ridge High. We formed in the fall of 2000, making 2025 our 25th season, and we annually compete in the international FIRST  Robotics Competition. Our team is made up of multiple sub-teams including, Build, Electrical, CAD, Programming, Business, and Outreach.

Recent Accomplishments

Winner

2023 FIRST North Carolina UNC Asheville Event 

Impact Award

2023 FIRST North Carolina Wake County Event

Winner

2023 FIRST North Carolina District Championship

Finalist

2023 FIRST North Carolina Wake County Event

Autonomous Award

2023 FIRST North Carolina UNC Asheville Event

Sub-teams

Business

The Business team is one of the teams that doesn't work on mechanical projects. This team writes and applies for grants and sponsorships. They also help to make sure that the team has a balanced budget

Outreach

The Outreach team works to show our team to the community. They plan events and opportunities for the team to showcase who we are and what we do. They also plan projects to help out people from the community such as the various accessibility project that we have done.

Build

Build is the team for those that like lots of hands on work with hand and power tools. They are responsible for machining and assembly of every mechanical part on the robot.

CAD

The CAD (Computer Aided Design) team makes the digital version of our robot. They lead the design phase of each mechanical project, using Onshape, to create 3D models that will later turn into our robot.

Electrical

The Electrical team works closely with the build team to allow the robot to run. This team is in charge of managing all of the electronic and pneumatic components of the robot. 

Progamming

The Programming team writes and tests the code that goes to our robot. Each season they must write the code that allows the robot to complete whatever challenge was set by FIRST  that year. Our team codes in C++.

First Year Team

Our History

A robotics team was founded in the fall of 2000 by two Orange High School teachers, Mrs. Daye and Ms. Sy. The first meeting of what would become The Hedgehogs took place on November 1, 2000. That year, we registered for the NASA/VCU Regional and received the team number 587; from that year to 2006 we were referred to and known by this number, as we lacked a team name. At that point in time, the team had only a few members and built the robot in the back of Mrs. Daye's room. Our 2005 season was an important one in Hedgehog history. Unfortunately, this was the last year that HowStuffWorks, which was our primary sponsor previously, sponsored us. This misfortune caused our next few seasons to be run on a vastly reduced budget, and kept us from attending the Championship until 2008. Yet, the season did not end on a completely sour note; in 2005 we got two-thirds of an empty classroom to ourselves to build the robot in. Today, the team has changed a lot since its 2001 roots. We no longer build in Mrs. Daye's room, we now have a class room all to ourselves. The team has grown from a few members all from one school, to over forty members from 2 high schools. We still work just as hard and we are ever-improving our members skills, abilities, and minds.