COCOA, Fla. – Police robots are designed to go into the most dangerous situations -- where officers are most at risk -- and now the Cocoa Police Department has one, thanks to about a dozen high school students.
"I thought it was awesome," said 16-year-old sophomore Thomas Muller. "You got to build a robot for the police that they're going to use and it'll really help them."
Muller and his group, the Bionic Tigers, showed off their not-so-usual after-school project Monday.
The robotics team, made up of mostly Cocoa High School students, was contacted by the crisis negotiations unit at the Cocoa Police Department earlier this year to build the robot for the SWAT team.
The goal? To help to deliver a phone in hostage and crisis situations.
"It's phenomenal," said Chief Mike Cantaloupe with the Cocoa Police Department. "It's amazing what they created, it really is."
But the robot can do more than just deliver a phone.
Its robotic arm can deploy flash bangs and carry items up to 15 pounds to officers who are in potentially dangerous situations.
"Before we had this, I would have to take members of my SWAT team behind a shield to carry an item to wherever we wanted to put it," said Cantaloupe. "With the robot, we now don't have to put officers in harm's way."
With the help of engineers at the Kennedy Space Center, the Bionic Tigers were able to finish the robot in about a week.
Muller said knowing that they were building something as important as this definitely added a little pressure.
"It does save lives and that does put a little pressure on us that it works and that is stays reliable," he said.
The Police Department doesn't know how to fix the robot if it does break -- that'll be up to the Bionic Tigers.
The city of Cocoa donated $5,000 for a Bionic Tigers scholarship program to help seniors on the team with expenses as they head to college.