The Army Ants Robotics team has been preparing and waiting for months in anticipation of this year’s robotics season.
For those who don’t know, Army Ants is part of an international organization called FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology). FIRST was founded more than 20 years ago by the inventor of the Segway, Dean Kamen, in order to change world culture so that science and technology careers would be cool and what students were interested in.
Army Ants is a team in FIRST’s FRC (FIRST Robotics Competition) division, which is designed for high school students to get industry-level experience through building a robot each year to compete against other teams at a regional, then international level. This past Saturday marked the start of the 2013 build season, which lasts only six short weeks.
FRC teams across the globe gathered to watch the game-reveal live online. FIRST announced that this year’s game is Ultimate Ascent. The original announcement came through the video below followed, by a detailed game manual on their official site.

 
Army Ants have been brainstorming ideas this week. They have designed several concepts in CAD (Computer Aided Design) to test out through computer simulation. This weekend the ideas will be finalized and a full prototype will be built over the next week.
We are just getting started and are looking forward to the coming weeks of the build season.
By John Gillis
If you are interested in joining the team, it is not too late. As long as you are are a freshman through a senior and live in Boone county, you can come to the Columbia Area Career Center after school any weekday to join.