Macy Industries was proud to be a key partner in the 2025 FIRST® Robotics Competition, fabricating the purple pipes that serve as underwater reefs in the REEFSCAPE℠ challenge. These structures are at the heart of the game, where student-designed robots carefully place coral onto different branches to earn points. The higher the placement, the greater the score—pushing students to engineer with strategy and precision.
With expertise in custom metal fabrication, precision cutting, and large-scale production, we worked closely with FIRST® to manufacture key elements of the game, while ensuring cost efficiency, quality, and fast turnaround times.
Beyond fabrication, the Macy team was thrilled to contribute to a program that inspires students to explore engineering, robotics, and problem-solving—helping shape the next generation of innovators.
FIRST’s Legacy of Innovation
When it comes to STEM education, few organizations have made a bigger impact than FIRST®. Every year, thousands of students worldwide participate in engineering challenges designed to spark creativity, teamwork, and problem-solving skills.
Founded in 1989 by inventor Dean Kamen, FIRST® has grown into the world’s leading nonprofit dedicated to advancing STEM education through hands-on robotics competitions. The annual FIRST® Robotics Competition brings high school students, mentors, and industry professionals together to design and build robots that tackle real-world engineering challenges.
Macy Industries’ connection to FIRST® goes back to the very beginning when Kamen collaborated with local Manchester, NH schools—some of which partnered with our custom metal fabrication shop on early projects. Decades later, FIRST® approached us to fabricate key components for the 2024 competition. The project was so successful that they reached back out a year later, giving us an even bigger role in the 2025 challenge.
Building the Purple Pipes for REEFSCAPE℠
Watch the 2025 FIRST Robotics Competition video, and you’ll see them in action—the standout purple pipes that simulate underwater coral reefs, giving teams’ robots a critical structure to interact with in the REEFSCAPE℠ competition.
While FIRST® provided the initial design specifications, the fabrication process required close collaboration. Macy Industries produced the pipes to exact specifications and recommended improvements, such as welding end caps onto each pipe for a more polished appearance and easier handling.
Precision and consistency were critical since every school participating in the competition needed a set of these pipes for testing and training. These components would be used in practice sessions, regional qualifiers, and the national championship—making quality control a top priority.
To ensure accuracy while meeting the high-volume production demands, we relied on our Dragon Machine, a CNC-controlled plasma cutter designed for precision tube cutting. Unlike traditional band saws, which use rotating blades to cut metal, our Dragon Machine uses superheated plasma to create clean, accurate cuts at high speeds.
This advanced technology allowed us to:
- Automate hole placement and rotation for perfect alignment
- Reduce material waste and ensure consistent part quality
- Speed up production for high-volume orders
By leveraging this equipment, our custom metal fabrication shop delivered precision-engineered parts faster and at a lower cost than those quoted by international suppliers. The result? Durable game components built to handle months of practice and competition.
From Prototype to Perfection
One advantage of working with Macy Industries is our ability to iterate quickly. With expertise in design, fabrication, and installation, our team can adapt as needed—an essential capability when working on large-scale projects like this. Our proximity to FIRST’s testing lab also played a key role. We worked closely with FIRST’s engineering and procurement teams during the prototyping phase to fine-tune the design to ensure the components were easy to assemble in the field.
The ability to make fast, precise adjustments ensured that the pipes met functional requirements while keeping production on schedule. This collaboration guaranteed that every competition—from local practice sessions to national championships—had durable, high-quality game elements ready to go.
Why FIRST® Chose Macy Industries for Custom Metal Fabrication
At Macy Industries, we’re not like other industrial metal fabricators. Our ability to manage every stage of the development process—from initial design to final delivery—sets us apart. This one-stop-shop approach ensures:
- Faster turnaround times
- Cost efficiency
- Quality control
- Collaborative engineering
By partnering with Macy Industries, FIRST® Robotics secured high-quality, precision-engineered components while supporting local manufacturing—a win-win for STEM education and the custom metal fabrication industry.
We’re proud of our role in this year’s competition and look forward to future collaborations with FIRST®. Applying our expertise in industrial metal fabrication, we helped create game elements that challenge students to think critically, design creatively, and build with precision. Seeing these components in action—and knowing they help young engineers develop real-world skills—makes this project especially meaningful for our team.
If you have a project that requires high-quality custom metal fabrication, we’d love to hear about it. Contact Macy Industries today to discuss how we can bring your vision to life—on time and on budget.