This weekend we went to check out a demonstration by the local First Robotics Competition (FRC) team, The Grasshoppers. FRC is the next level up from FLL, which we’ve been doing for the past few years. FRC typically starts in 9th grade, but the coaches told me that they have taken a few middle school kids over the years and would be willing to consider my boy next year. It looked pretty awesome!

This is their demo robot. The competition one is sealed up in plastic, ready for the next meet. The kids got a great close up of the workings in this thing and the high school kids and coaches did a fantastic job explaining it all.

This robot can climb a rope!!! They said it’s not finished yet and they still need to put guides on the robot to help it climb more straight, but it’s still pretty impressive!

We also got a tour of the workshop area and a demo of a bunch of machines they use to make the parts for the robots.

Lex got to adjust the something on the big grinder machine. It’s late and I forget the right words. :)

Dark goggles on! Time for the plasma cutter!

The guy is holding the piece of aluminum he cut on the plasma cutter. It needs to be cleaned up, bent (another neat machine they showed us), painted, then attached to the robot.

It was a pretty cool demonstration over all.  The team has their next match in a few weeks and we might check it out.  I think it would be pretty impressive!

When the team starts up again in the fall Lex will have a chance to join them for a few meetings to see if he feels up for it and if they think he’s old enough.  If not, we can try again in 8th or 9th grade.  No rush.