Code Red Partners with Area Teams to Run the Second Annual Fall Robotics Workshop

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With an ever growing number of FRC teams in West Michigan, there is a need for information and training about all things FIRST and robotics for these area teams.  To fulfill that need, a group of eight area FIRST Robotics Competition teams partnered together on October 26, 2019, to run the 2nd Annual Fall Robotics Workshop. The event took place at Grand Valley State University’s Kennedy Hall of Engineering.  Each team presented at least one workshop; some workshops were one hour workshop repeated throughout the day while others offered a beginner and advanced version of the topic. Topics offered were: Kickoff and Brainstorming, FIRST Information, Running Effective Team Meetings, Team Safety, Chairman’s Chat, CAD, Electrical, Pneumatics, Manipulator Types, Labview, Game Strategy, Scouting Data and Analysis, and Writing College and Scholarship Application Essays.  Code Red Robotics led the workshops on Kickoff and College/Scholarship Essays. Over 250 students from all over Michigan attended the Fall Robotics Workshop in 2019, an increase from the first one in 2018. Passing along information and assistance to mentors and students from other teams was a rewarding experience, but probably even more rewarding was the opportunity to network and share ideas.

  • Students learn how to write quality scholarship essays
  • NC Gears talks manipulators

Code Red Runs its Fall Season of NRG with another new game: City Clean-up

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In the fall of 2019, it was time for another exciting season of NRG.  At the first meeting, we revealed our newest game; CITY CLEANUP, designed, developed, and built by our FRC students. The season runs from September to October, meeting once a week to build Arduino robots and play games to learn teamwork. The goal of this year’s game was to push pieces of PVC (called scrap metal) up, into, and under ramps (into the Recycling bin, Reusing facility, and Repurposing Shop) for points. The NRG students enjoyed the challenge of maneuvering through an obstacle course, multiple ways to score, and completing the end game task off placing a “bush” large plastic ball) on top of the recycling bin.  The high school students had the experience of brainstorming a game, troubleshooting it, working out the rules and penalties, building a field and game pieces, and writing a game manual. During the six team sessions, 4th-6th grade students began the evening by playing team building or engineering games such as “Moving marbles” and an Engineering Escape Room. After team building time, first year students worked on building their robots and learning how to drive them. Second year students learned some basic programming with the goal of creating a program that would make their robots finish an autonomous obstacle course.  At the end of the six weeks, FRC students ran a full competition with live scoring, qualification and final matches, and an award ceremony. We had 25 students and 13 of them were 2nd and 3rd year students.

  • Introducing the Game
  • Painting game pieces
  • Driving takes lots of focus.
  • Tournament Day!

NRG 2019-20 Game Video: City Cleanup!

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NRG Students Kick-off Summer with Robotics Summer Camp

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In June of 2019, Code Red ran our 5th annual NRG summer camp for students in grades 4-6.  For one week, students built their own robots, learned how to program them, and practiced driving to play our 2018 Game: NRG LIFTOFF. This year’s summer camp took place at Byron Center Countryside Elementary school for 5 days. We had 25 students this year who enjoyed learning how to build and program their own robots then play in the tournament.  We played fun team building games throughout the week, such as a balloon animal balloon tower building contest, “Lava Pit”, and “Think Like a Robot”. During these games, kids learn teamwork and take a break from all that hard work building robots. On the 5th day Code Red’s FRC students ran a competition complete with referees, qualification matches, and finals. They also designed and produced original software to run the scoring of the event.   It was a successful week with several of the students excited to return for another season of NRG in the fall.

Tournament Day!
The Challenge: get the hoop all the way around the circle without letting go of a teammate’s hands

FRC 2019 Season Recap: Diving Deep into Robotics and Problem-solving

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The drive team is excited to at the World Championship in Detroit

Code Red celebrated its 10 year anniversary during the 2019 season with the theme “A Decade of Impact”.  It was also an important year for Code Red’s six seniors who were starting their final year as a FIRST student after being part of the team since elementary school or since middle school.  It was also a season of change in that Code Red entered into a partnership with Byron Center Public Schools which includes will include a new build space in 2020 that is part of a two-year expansion project at Byron Center High School.  Our competition schedule was also set to include an event in Canada, Code Red’s first time competing outside the United States.

With these factors and the team excited about the 2019 game, FIRST Deep Space, we were ready to take on the new challenges of placing hatches and cargo in rockets and cargo ships and climbing on the hab in the end game.  Our robot design included swerve drive and a lift system that allowed us to place game pieces on all levels of the rocket as well as climb the highest level of the hab. Competition season began with our first event at Georgian College in Barrie, Ontario, Canada.  The weekend was a time for Code Red to see how the robot performed in competition in preparation for our Michigan events. Code Red was selected as part of the 6th alliance and were eliminated in the quarter-finals. The highlight of the weekend was receiving the Quality Award at the event, capping off a successful weekend for Code Red.

Our next event was at East Kentwood High School.  At East Kentwood, we ranked 10th and were captains of the 6th alliance.  We selected the Techno Trojans (5405) and Wayland Wildcats (6090) as our alliance partners, and were up against the 3rd alliance.  Unfortunately, we were eliminated in the quarterfinals by the alliance that went on to win the event. Code Red was awarded the Gracious Professionalism Award during the awards ceremony.

Forest Hills was Code Red’s second Michigan event.  At the end of qualification matches, we were ranked 9th and were selected for the 5th alliance by the Iron Giants (5069), who also selected Excel (2474) to join our alliance.  We made it to semifinals where we lost to the alliance that went on to win the event. In the awards ceremony, Code Red was honored to get the Entrepreneurship Award, and we qualified for the Michigan State Championship!

Next came the State Championship at Saginaw Valley State University.  Code Red was in the Dow Division and had an up and down series of qualification matches.  By alliance selection, we were ranked 20th. We were selected by the Atombots (245) to join the 4th alliance along with GRAYT (1322).  We won our first qualification match but lost the second due to 1322 breaking down. Our alliance took a time out and called in a back-up robot, Byron Robotics (5641), to take the place of 1322.  We won the third quarterfinal match and were on to the semifinals. In the semifinals, we lost to the alliance that went on to win the division, but we were thrilled at the same time because we had qualified for the World Championship in Detroit.

In Detroit, Code Red competed in the Darwin Division.  At the end of qualification matches, we were ranked 18th and became the first pick for the 8th alliance.  Our alliance captain was The Wings of Fire (51), and we were also with Atombots (245). We were eliminated in quarterfinals, and with that, it brought an end to the 2019 season.  Looking back, amidst all the ups and downs that a season of robotics can bring, it was a fun season as a cohesive team of friends.

FRC 2019 Game Animation: Destination Deep Space

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Two alliances of deep space travelers race to place hatch panel on their rockets and cargo ship, load valuable cargo for transport off the planet, and return to the safety of their habitat, all before the next sandstorm sweeps through.