Code Red: The robots are dancing.

Some of Ithaca’s best young tinkerers are gearing up for a robot battle, and they’re giving you the chance to check out their latest builds.

No, this isn’t Real Steel or I-Robot; these bots don’t box, but will instead compete in a game of Crescendo, a lively concert of rolling bots and tossing rings, with two alliances of three teams competing to earn points through teamwork and coordination, sending rings to two different scoring zones.

This Saturday, Feb 3, Ithaca High School’s Code Red Robotics will host an open house from 1 to 4 p.m. at Ithaca High School, located at 1401 North Cayuga Street.

Science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) groups from the Ithaca City School District middle and high schools, Cornell, and other organizations from the Ithaca community will set up booths, interactive demonstrations and experiments for children and their families to explore.

Students interested in STEM will be invited on guided tours of the IHS tech rooms, get a peek into what its resident robotics team can do with a live assembly of one of their bots and watch a robotics scrimmage scheduled for the event.

The Code Red Robotics website has released videos from prior robotics competitions, and more information on the FIRST program, for those interested.

New game, new bots, new skills

Crescendo, a game that takes quite a twist on your traditional competitive sport, was introduced to the robotics team at the beginning of their build season on Jan. 6. The soft rings players use to score points can get caught and scuffed on metal, forcing student designers to change up their usual go-to builds.

“It was really exciting getting to see everyone's reaction to the new challenge, and it's cool to think that thousands of other teams around the world were watching it with us.” a first-year member of the team Helina Kim, said at the time.

The student-led team will be competing in two back-to-back competitions this year. About 60 Ithaca robotics students will travel to the Finger Lakes Regional in Rochester from March 14 to 16 and to Tech Valley Regional in Albany for the finals on March 21.

James Eddlestone, of Ithaca, who graduated from Alfred University in 2022 with a degree in mechanical engineering, began studying robotics with Code Red when he was a freshman at IHS.

“One of the really cool things that Code Red does is support some of the younger programs that FIRST also offers, like junior Lego League, which is elementary school level. It’s sort of the introductory “get young students thinking about science” type of program that uses a platform kids know and love, which is LEGO.”

Giving back

Eddlestone said that his early exposure to engineering through Code Red and the school’s For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST) program through the FIRST national nonprofit, gave him an edge when applying to positions in STEM fields and personal connections to BorgWarner, where he had his first internship out of high school.

He mentors for Code Red and still engineers after working each day at Vector Magnetics, spending his evenings at Ithaca High to help students build their latest inventions.

Emma Hagan can’t stay as involved with the group as she would like to now that she’s studying at RIT, and neck-deep in oil meant for lubing up industrial excavators during her internship with the Elma-based Moog Construction, but looks back on her four years in Code Red fondly.

“At my first Co-op, I used a lot of the 3D modeling skills that I learned in PLW classes and in FIRST robotics, as well as just professional communication skills with having to communicate with mentors during build season,” Hagan said Wednesday. “Having the confidence to speak up and be one of the only women in the room, and just being good with my hands in general, helped, having all of that experience from before, as well as having some manufacturing experience in terms of building the actual robot, I could then apply that at an engineering job to understand the manufacturing process from start to finish.”

Code Red Robotics is facilitated through Ithaca High School’s For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST) team, formed by the FIRST national non-profit to inspire more young students to learn about STEM fields.

Hagan said that Code Red did just that for her and will likely present today’s young bot builders with similar opportunities.

“Things are seriously taking off at an incredible speed,” she said. “There's startup companies everywhere and with the new kind of standard of working at places for two to five years and then moving to another job, I think it's just great to have a well-rounded experience that you can start in high school, that then helps you get better opportunities once you're out.”

Code Red is an associate member of the Ithaca STEM Advocates, an affiliate of the Ithaca Public Education Initiative (IPEI), a not-for-profit organization that believes the education of every student in the Ithaca City School District (ICSD) is enhanced through community connections and support.

This article originally appeared on Ithaca Journal: It's Code Red at IHS for its robotics team