The Barker Redbacks is a high school FRC robotics team based in Sydney, Australia. Our FRC team registered under FIRST in 2013 and we were assigned the number 4613 for our team. We began competing in the annual offseason event Duel Down Under that year, hosted by our school from 2012 to 2015.

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In 2013 we were awarded the Gracious Professionalism Award at DDU, followed by the Excellence in Robot Design Award in 2014 as well as winning the competition.

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In 2015 we competed for the first time on the international stage, against other FIRST teams participating in the competition. We reached the finals in the Australian Regional and picked up the Innovation in Control Award and qualified for the World Championship held in St Louis. We reached the semifinals of our division consisting of over 60 teams and was ranked in the top 20 teams worldwide after our performances. We also won DDU later that year and started the FLL program in the Junior School for Years 5 and 6. Later in 2015, the school decided to have a robotics open day in which students could visit the robotics lab and have a quick tour. Many students joined afterwards, raising the interest in robotics at our school.

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For the 2016 competition season, we participated in two regionals, the Australian Regional and Western Canada regional. We won the Australian Regional with our good friends Team 3132 - Thunder Down Under. Our team was also awarded the Chairman's Award, the most prestigious award at FIRST, and the Dean's List Finalist Award for one of our students for is RedBoX innovation. We travelled to Calgary to participate in the Canada regional, which we were finalists. Two of our mentors won the Woodie Flowers Award, which is an award presented to a mentor who best leads, inspires, teaches and empowers their team using excellent communication skills. Our achievements at the regional competitions indicated we had qualified for the World Championship in St Louis. We participated in DDU in June, winning the competition with our robot and reaching the finals with the robot from team 5800. Our team also travelled to China for the annual China Robotics Challenge.

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For the first time in our team, we participated in four regional events in 2017. We helped open the inaugural Shenzhen Regional, as a founding member of the China Robotics Challenge, and won the event and was awarded the Engineering Inspiration Award for the competition. We co-hosted two Australian Regionals in one week, winning both of them, as well as two Excellence in Engineering Awards, a Woodie Flowers Award and  a Dean's List Finalist Award for creating ARACHNE. We also won the second Australian Regional without conceding a single match except for one semifinal, which was quite an achievement considering the strength and prowess of opposing teams. Our final regional took place in New York City, where we were awarded the Chairman's Award and won the competition. We travelled to Houston and placed finalists in our division, and also won the Innovation in Control Award.

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Our team is very proud to compete against teams from around the world, representing ourselves, our school, working together as a team to strive to work harder. We aim to develop students' skills to ensure they are working and communicating with each other well and reaching their highest potential. Problem solving and design planning are just two of many aspects in which our students strive to build on ideas during build season.