Tune in here to watch all of the 2012 Michigan FIRST Robotics Competitions (FRC), including the state championship on April 15th-17th. Code Red is webcasting every single FRC competition in Michigan, whether we’re there or not! In addition we are webcasting the following events:

• BAE Systems Granite State Regional on 01-Mar – 03-Mar-2012
• Bayou Regional on 15-Mar – 17-Mar-2012

We are also webcasting the Michigan Middle School FTC (First Tech Challenge) East Michigan Championship on February 25, 2012 in Novi, Michigan.

In other news: 

Code Red Robotics is wrapping up an intense build season after six weeks. A few reminders:

• Code Red’s Open House is Saturday, February 18, from 5-8 PM. Please come and visit!
• Our first tournament is March 2-3, at Gull Lake High School in Richland, MI
• The second tournament is March 16-17, Grand Valley State University in Allendale, MI

Good luck to all teams, and let us if you have any questions!

Students are designing, wrenching, programming, hammering, cutting, organizing, cleaning, and crafting our 2012 robot! Here are some pictures of our team’s progress thus far:

 

Our CAD team

 

Controls team programs the robot

 

The Marketing team working on getting sponsorship

 

A picture of the 2012 competition field

 

Another picture about marketing team

 

Our Fabrication team talking about the robot

 

A productive fab. team member

 

Two fab. team members cutting metal

 

A team member who is supposed to be doing something is lazing around… or posing for the picture

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

 

 

 

The Inaugural Michigan FTC Tournament for Middle Schools is here!

It is on January 14, 2012.

The venue will be available on Friday, 1/13, from 6pm-9pm for early registration and inspection.  West side teams are expected to register and be inspected on Friday.

Address:

Harbor Lights Middle School

1024 136th Ave

Holland MI 49424

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 7^th,  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 9^th 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

 

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/