FRC has kicked off!

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The FIRST Robotics 2012 season begun. The team gathered at Grand Valley State University’s Eberhard Center in downtown Grand Rapids for the big unveiling of this year’s game. Right now, the team is hard at work designing and building a robot play the game of “Rebound Rumble”.

The 2012 “Rebound Rumble” robotics game is played between two Alliances of three teams each. Each Alliance competes by trying to score as many of the basketballs in the hoops as possible during the two-minute and 15-second match. Balls scored in higher hoops score teams more points. Team Alliances are awarded bonus points if they are balanced on bridges at the end of the match. More information can be found here.

Important dates coming up:

-Come see our 2012 robot on Saturday, February 18, at 6:00 PM at our Open House.

-Our first competition will be at Kettering University on Friday and Saturday, March 2-3. More specific information can be found here.

-The second competition will be at Grand Valley State University in Allendale, MI, on Friday and Saturday, March 16-17.

Come on out and see Code Red compete with some of the world’s best robotics teams!

Good luck FIRST competitors.

Sincerely,

Code Red

 

 

 

2012 Code Red Mock Kickoff/News

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Well done with the Mock Kickoff!  Along with several Grand Rapids area teams, we had teams from Newaygo, Cassopolis, Niles, and even Indiana take part in this very cool event.  Code Red was well-represented with students, mentors and even some parents.  So, nice job everyone in helping to advance the engineering principles of hard-work, disciplined thought and innovative idea generation – all with the goal with making a difference!  In addition, we did collect a whole trunkful of supplies needed by the folks at Lutheran Child & Family Services in their service to local families. Way to go FIRST family!

Here is some important information for Code Red members:

Our last team meeting of 2011 will be Tuesday, December 13.  We are NOT having a team meeting on Monday, December 19th as originally planned.

(There will be a Mentor meeting on Tuesday, December 20, as we host the Code Red Mentor Cookie and Coffee Roundtable for area teams, but students will have the night off!)

The next team meeting is Tuesday, January 3 from 6:00 to 9:00 pm.

The real FIRST Kickoff will be January 7th,  2012, at GVSU’s Eberhard Center in downtown GR.  Attendance is mandatory for students and parents are welcome to participate.

Our Build Season begins on Monday, January 9th with the following schedule:

  • From 5:30 pm to 9:00 pm every Monday through Friday
  • Saturdays, from 10:00 am to 3:00 pm

That Build Season schedule continues until February 21, the day we lock up our new robot.  After that we’ll drop down to two nights per week as we head into competition season:

           – March 1-2-3   Kettering University

            -March 15-16-17  GVSU Allendale Campus

            -April 12-13-14  Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti

            -April  25-28       Edward Jones Dome in St. Louis, MO

As we mentioned, students need to put in at least 12 hours per week with the team while we are meeting on Monday through Saturday.  Our team is absolutely blessed with quality students, parents and mentors and Code Red is going to be part of something special this season.  Please let me know what questions you may have.
Parents are encouragaged to come to the Build Space and get involved in team activities.  We will be publishing a meal calendar so that families can sign up to provide meals during our Build Season.  The students will be working very, very hard and will have a quick dinner together every night.
Code Red families, friends, neighbors and sponsors are all invited to our Open House on Saturday, February 18 to check out the new student-designed and student-built robot, and to encourage the team members as they prepare for intense competition!  Refreshments will be served.
Merry Christmas!
-Code Red

 

CAD Workshop and Santa Claus Parade

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Almost 50 people from Code Red and other teams attended a CAD (Computer-Aided-Design) workshop on 11/19/11! PTC (one of our sponsors) had a instructor flown in from Minneapolis and provided hands on training in Mathcad, Windchill, and Creo Elements. Also, PTC kindly donated software and manuals for the dozens of middle school and high school students from many area FRC and FTC teams.


We were honored to participate in the Grand Rapids Santa Claus Parade with Lutheran Child and Family Services. It was a great partnership to raise awareness of the need for Foster parents and to gain support for their program of serving kids in need.

You can go to this link to learn more about the great staff of Lutheran Child and Family Services:

http://www.lcfsmi.org/

Fall 2011: FTC Has Started

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FIRST Tech Challenge has come to the State of Michigan this year. FTC for short. FTC is a robotics program for middle schoolers, to put something in between the FLL program and the FRC program. In precious years, middle schoolers in Michigan did not have a robotics program to come to in between FIRST Lego League, and FIRST Robotics Competition. Now, Code Red is now hosting two FTC teams.

Learn more at: www.usfirst.org/roboticsprograms/ftc

VIEW FTC UPDATES AT: www.coderedrobotics.com/FTC

VIEW FTC GAME VIDEO HERE: http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprograms/ftc/2011-2012-game-info

 

 

2011-2012 Pre-Season

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Code Red has kicked off the season with its annual pre-season meetings! The build season doesn’t start until January 9th, but Code Red believes that we shouldn’t put things off until the end of the season. Code Red doesn’t only build robots, but builds better people in our community.  Code Red Robotics wishes you the best of luck in the upcoming season.

US Army Robot

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The US Army came to the Code Red build space on June 29, 2011 to demonstrate a new robot that can do reconnaissance missions, and go places where it is to dangerous to send a human being.  That was the main reason that it was made, so we could spare lives.  Go to the Army Robot Page, here.