What is Code Red Robotics

Code Red Robotics, Team 639 is the Ithaca High School FIRST robotics team. Code Red is made up of about 35 students, 10 professional mentors and numerous parent and community volunteers who manage logistics and feed the crew. 1,500 teams from 10 countries compete at the high school level in regional and national events. The program creates an exciting and highly educational environment where the students work collaboratively with professional engineering mentors in the spirit of "Gracious Professionalism." Every year, in just six short weeks, the students design and build a complex, computer controlled machine to play a new game. Major funding comes from the generous donations of local and regional companies and individuals.

FIRST, www.usfirst.org, stands for 'For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology.' FIRST is a national organization that sponsors robotics competitions for elementary through high school students. The goal of the program is to educate students in all of the fields that apply to running the team and building the robot. This includes engineering, leadership, organizing, administration, and teamwork. Gracious Professionalism is stressed in all aspects, and this is seen in the remarkable cooperation among competing teams. Code Red won the Gracious Professionalism award at the 2009 Hartford CT. regional competition, among 50 teams, by dedicating individuals for two full days to help a rookie team complete their robot and and compete in the tournament.

FIRST creates a new game every year. This year the game is called "Breakaway." Breakaway is a fairly simple game, but one that offers many possibilities for robot designs and strategies. The game is played with six robots, three per team and 12 soccer balls. There are four goals on a field designed specifically for this game. There are two dividers ("bumps") that divide the field three sections. The game presents opportunities for varying strategies.

In Breakaway, each team needs defensive robots, robots that can score goals, and robots that can move balls around the field and over the bumps. Another option, that we are building into the robot this year, is the ability to lift ourselves, and even hold up one or both of the other 120 Lb. robots in the air, hanging from an overhead pipe. Look out below! Each team has to select a few of the many aspects of the game to create a specialized robot that will be valuable to its team. Experience has taught us not to try to do too much...

The process of actually designing and building a robot in six weeks has several phases, which must be accomplished quickly. The first of the six weeks is spent creating "the game winning strategy" and looking at the pros and cons of many approaches. After deciding on our strategy we create prototypes to try-out different concepts for achieving the goals defined in our strategy. Early-on, a team builds full-size sections of the actual field for testing the prototypes and later, the final robot. Once the prototypes are complete, we analyze them and pick the best elements from each, and compile them into one amazing robot.

The remaining time is filled with producing detailed designs, CAD drawings, manufacturing, purchasing, accounting, machining and assembling at top speed. At the same time, the electrical, pneumatic, and control software systems must be deigned, built and tested. If we are lucky, we have the last week to test the robot and let the drivers practice. Code Red will attend two regionals, and hopefully earn an invitation to the national competition in Atlanta, GA, as it has once before in its 10-year history.

At the end of this season all of the Code Red students will have gained knowledge, experience, skills, and work ethics that will help them with both life skills and future employment. Hopefully, at the end of the year we will also have made a robot we are proud of, and have the satisfaction of completing such a large task.