Archive: Around Town

The weekend of March 24-26, Ithaca High School's student robotics team, Code Red Robotics, travelled to Suffern, NY, where they competed against 47 other FIRST teams from across the world. In an alliance of two other teams, Code Red won the Hudson Valley regional competition, qualifying them for World Championships in St. Louis, April 26-29.

Code Red Robotics is an Ithaca High School student club, and one of over 3,000 teams that compete in the high-school division of FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology). Each year, FIRST releases a game-like challenge for all high-school robotics teams in the world. The teams have six weeks from that day to build a 120 lb. robot to compete in the game.

Code Red Robotics competed with their robot in two competitions this year. The Suffern, NY regional event was their second competition. During the first day and a half of the competition, six randomly selected robots competed against each other in two teams until a ranking was established. Then, the top 8-ranked teams chose two other robots to play with them in an alliance against each other top teams. Code Red Robotics, ranked 15th out of 48 at the end of the preliminary competition round, was chosen by the 8th ranked alliance. Despite seemingly unlikely odds, they defeated all other top alliances, and won the regional with highest score of the weekend. Code Red's alliance partners were two high school teams from Flushing and Brooklyn, NY. This victory qualifies the team for the World Championships.

The team also won an award celebrating its professionalism, interactions with other teams, and team structure. The award, known as the Gracious Professionalism award, also commends their volunteer work in the Ithaca community and their efforts to give young kids access to technology and science education.