George Mason students fly into first place with no GPS, no grade, and (almost) no problems

Driven by passion, persistence, and what they call “the love of the game,” a group of George Mason University students affiliated with the Mason Autonomy and Robotics Center (MARC) claimed first place at the 2026 Raytheon Autonomous Vehicle Competition at EagleBank Arena on April 24, 2026. 

The competition challenged student teams to design and deploy autonomous aerial and ground vehicle systems capable of executing a series of increasingly complex missions. Unlike prior outdoor iterations, the 2026 competition eliminated access to GPS, forcing teams to rely on advanced onboard sensing and visual navigation techniques to orient themselves in space. EagleBank Arena has been hosting national robotics competitions since 2023 with support from an Office of Naval Research grant to transform the venue into a robotics experimentation and sporting venue. 

George Mason’s autonomous robotics team rose to the challenge. Over the course of the competition, their system successfully completed all three mission objectives, earning the top overall score and securing first place. The win capped months of late nights and creative problem-solving by a team that was not competing for a grade, credit, or formal requirement, but purely out of enthusiasm for robotics. 

“This isn’t even an official club yet,” said computer science major Gagan Manjunatha. “We’re here for the love of the game.”  

For many teams at the competition, participation counts as a senior design project. George Mason’s team, however, had no such structure. “A lot of teams do use this as their senior design project, but the nice thing about us not doing it is that we have people that can come back year after year,” said team lead Meah Chambers, a junior majoring in electrical engineering.  

“I like the hands-on experience,” she said. This was Chambers’ third robotics team competition, each of which she found rewarding. “It’s like I’ve done three mini senior designs. I like the design team experience, working on a team for an end goal.”

The technical demands of the competition were steep. Challenge one required a drone to autonomously take off from a moving ground vehicle and land back on it. The second challenge layered on autonomous search and detection, requiring the drone to identify a visual tag, communicate its location, and guide the ground vehicle to the target. A third challenge added obstacle detection and avoidance for both aerial and ground systems. 

To meet those demands, the team divided into drone and ground sub‑teams, with students specializing in software, hardware, mechanical design, and systems integration. Majors across electrical engineering, computer engineering, mechanical engineering, and computer science were represented. Visual‑inertial simultaneous localization and mapping (VSLAM) replaced GPS, allowing the drone to understand its position using cameras and onboard sensors. 

“We were given the challenges in September and two semesters to plan and work on our system,” said electrical engineering major Emma Misevschi. Without senior design funding or course integration, students volunteered their time over the academic year to design, build, test, and refine their system. “Everything just happened to come together this week,” she said. 

Funding constraints added another layer of difficulty. While funding for system components were provided by competition sponsor Raytheon, the money arrived late in the academic year, forcing the team to borrow equipment, lean on shared research lab resources, and compress months of testing into intense overnight sessions. 

Despite many team members having stayed up testing into the wee hours of the night before the competition, spirits were high at the end of the first day of the two-day competition. Chambers joked, “Two hours is like a nice nap instead of sleeping for the night.” 

Computer engineering major and ground team lead Logan Teyema added the (understandably tired) motto of hustle culture, “Water is life, food is fuel, and sleep is a crutch.” 

In the end, their teamwork paid off. When the judges arrived, George Mason’s system performed cleanly and consistently, earning top marks across the challenges and finishing first overall. 

The full team includes Luis Anchundia, James Daniel, Konraad Ludwig, Hassan Youssef, Emma Misevschi, Thomas Fletcher, Christopher Romero-Klevisha, Toan Do, Meah Chambers, Gagan Manjunatha, Connor Roberts, William Maynard, Logan Teyema, Ellie Kwon, Rico Rodriguez, Nick Kasa, and Yousif Alani. Faculty advisors include Cameron Nowzari, Xuesu Xiao, and Ningshi Yao. 

Are you interested in joining the team? Learn more on the team’s website and watch a video about their experiences.