Archive: Around Town

Tuesday evening 33 members of Ithaca High School’s Code Red Robotics Team 639 boarded a bus with ten mentors bound for St. Louis, Missouri, excited to compete in the World Championships of the FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC), April 23 - 26.  The team earned the right to participate by winning last month’s Buckeye Regional Competition in Cleveland, Ohio, in an alliance of teams from California and Michigan.

In the weeks since qualifying the team has been busy fundraising and putting in place plans for Championships.  The budget for the event exceeds $30,000, doubling the support needed to fund the ‘regular’ season. With the strong help of the Ithaca community the team has almost met the full need.  Sponsors such as CBORD, Cayuga Family Medicine, Datapoint Labs and Tetra Tech made extra contributions, and new donors such as M&T Bank, Sciarabba Walker, and Cornell’s College of Engineering, Center for Computational Sustainability, and Computing and Information Sciences joined dozens of individuals in making the trip to Championships possible.

Code Red Team members also raised more than $4,000 by selling special LED light bulbs specifically designed for FIRST fundraising efforts.  In just three weeks the team sold 447 bulbs.

The Championship event is the largest of its kind, filling the Edward Jones Dome in St. Louis to capacity. 400 select teams from across the globe, including representatives from Australia, Canada, Germany, Israel, Brazil, Mexico, Netherlands, and the United States, compete on four fields. While this will be Code Red’s third consecutive Championship event, it is always a new and inspiring experience for team members. "Before Champs last year I had no idea of the scale that FIRST truly operates at. When I first walked into the pits, I was amazed at the sheer size and the number of teams there. It humbled me to see so many other amazing FRC, FTC and FLL teams all in the same place,” states Adam Newhouse, a sophomore and second year member.

Code Red has done well at past competitions. In 2004, 2005, and 2013, Code Red won Regional Competitions. In 2012, the team had the honor of receiving the Engineering Inspiration Award at the Finger Lakes Regional, an award that qualified them to attend the World Championships in St. Louis. The team also attended Worlds last year, after winning the Buckeye Regional.  This year the team also won the Innovation in Control Award, sponsored by Rockwell Automation, at both the Buckeye and Finger Lakes Regional events. Annual support by generous supporters is vital to Code Red’s success including lead sponsor Rheonix as well as  BAE Systems, BorgWarner Morse TEC, Cayuga Medical Center, CBORD, Cognitive TPG, Cayuga Family Medicine, Datapoint Labs, Tetra Tech, Vector Magnetics, NASA Glenn Research Center, Tompkins Trust Company, U-Haul of Ithaca, AccuFab, Incodema. Innovative Metal Works, Ithaca City School District, ICSD Board of Education, Ithaca High School, IPEI, and Ithaca STEM Advocates.  In addition, Code Red received numerous donations from individuals from across the community.

This weekend’s championship events will be broadcast through live feeds (look for Team 639).  Code Red will be competing on the Archimedes Field with ten qualification matches on Thursday (4/24), Friday (4/25), and Saturday morning (4/26), followed by Alliance selections, the elimination rounds, and final championship matches for the winners from each field.  All posted times will be Central Daylight Savings.  Fans can also follow Code Red’s Twitter @CRRteam639 for live competition updates. FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) is an organization committed to educating and motivating the next generation of engineers, scientists, and leaders. FRC (FIRST Robotics Competition), to which Code Red belongs, is the highest level of a number of programs, all designed to introduce students of all ages to science and technology.  More than 4500 teams worldwide compete in regional and district FRC events after a frantic six-week design and build process.

FIRST Code Red Robotics, an Ithaca High School student organization, is an associate of Ithaca STEM Advocates, an affiliate of the Ithaca Public Education Initiative (IPEI).
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