Members • FTC 10582 – Emerald Knights

Crystal Zeng

Captain

Crystal is one of the current co-captains and is a senior but a junior on the team. Crystal is a prominent contributor to designing and building the physical bot. Crystal’s favorite fruit is watermelon but she is allergic to it.

Kaitlin Manoj

Captain

Kaitlin is one of the co-captains and is a senior. She is a prominent contributor to recording various iterations of each robot design and often tests the feasibility of bot designs using Fusion360.

Daniel Su

Head of Build

Daniel is a sophomore and a builder. He enjoys swimming and martial arts and is the younger brother of Emerald Knights Alumni Jessica and Rachel Su.

Jack Liu

Head of Code

Jack is the current Head of Code of the team and joined as a freshman during the 21-22 season and is now currently a senior. Besides coding, he enjoys lifting and drinking lots of energy drinks.

Ryan Chen

Head of Finance

Ryan or “Dottie” is a senior but a junior builder on the team. He is an important part of the builder team who helps create the robot. Ryan enjoys playing volleyball and Fortnite.

Jonny Ma

Head of CAD

Jonny is a senior on the team and is one of the co-heads of CAD. Jonny enjoys opening digital Pokemon Card packs and is a very energetic and entertaining member of the team, bringing energy to every meeting.

Allison Zhou

Head of CAD

Allison is a sophomore on the team and joined the team during the 2024-2025 season and is a CADer. She enjoys listening to kpop and watching anime for men with white hair. Allison says she is very nonchalant.

Pari Narang

Head of Media

Pari is a senior on the team who is the head of media/outreach. She plans out the different media posts we put onto instagram and sets up outreaches with other teams and events.

Jason Qi

Head of Outreach

Jason joined the team in the 2024-2025 season as a coder and is a sophomore. He is the younger brother of alumni Bryan Qi. Jason likes playing a specific line from the song Coffee by BoywithUke.

Arkit Shah

Head of Logbook

Arkit is the current Head of Log and is a junior on the team. As the Head of Log, Arkit is in charge of documenting progress during meetings and various changes to Code, Build and CAD. Arkit is the inventor of the “live-logging method” and is an avid traveler, having been to over 15 countries.

Benjamin Sun

Coder

Ben is a junior coder on the team (made this site!). He is very good at competition math and being intelligent. Ben is a skilled problem solver and enjoys swimming.

Annie Jiang

Builder

Annie is a junior on the team who was initially a coder but has now switched to being a full-time builder. One of Annie’s favorite foods are frog legs.

Mr. Van Pelt

Coach

Mr. Van Pelt is currently our coach starting from 2022. He teaches AP Computer Science Applications at Livingston High School. He is a very supportive coach and frequently checks in on the various teams at Livingston High School to keep them on track.

Mr. Karpack

Coach

Mr. Karpack has been our coach starting from 2022 to present. He teaches Tech and Design at Livingston High School. He has a plethora of knowledge to offer, and he encourages the team to host weekly check-ins to keep us progressing through the season productively.

Ms. Ziobro

Coach

Ms. Ziobro was an engineering and architectural CAD teacher at our school, and our coach from 2019-2021. She had a plethora of ideas to help our team, and always tried to help us stay on track. With her help, we've become a much more organized and streamlined team, using CAD to plan out all of our ideas. She has also been helpful in helping raise awareness for the team, recommending students of hers to join our team. She is also really supportive, even when the team faces a tough loss after a competition.

Mr. Micciche

Coach

Mr. Micciche was a tech and computer science principles teacher at our school, and our coach from 2018-2020. He was super laid-back and chill, which made him an amazing teacher (even if the administrators disagree). Even though he had a lot of work, he always found time for us to help us out, especially with 3D printing. Early in the season, he often has a lot of insight and ideas to help us draft a robot idea and get off the ground.

Mr. Novotny

Coach

Mr. Novotny was our coach from 2016-2018. He imparted upon us many a deep wisdom and taught us the “practical” side of robotics. He still is a large influence on the FTC community, often using his time to volunteer as a judge at FIRST competitions and has been here since almost the inception of FTC as a coach for the Lancers.