The competition was broken down separating intermediate competitors and advanced competitors.
MISD District Robotics Coordinator Kurt Cowudrey said "Two aspects, one is called arena and it is actually playing a game."
The arena aspect is more like a robotics game of checkers.
"You have to program your robot and it has to pick up little PVC pipe things and it's got to get a couple of the checkers and PVC pipe and has to get different combinations to score points," said arena competitor Josh Baltzell.
The second aspect for competitors is inventions.
Cowudrey describes it, "It's like science far on steroids."
The inventions team Pegasus Rising is one of the advanced teams competing.
Pegasus Rising team captain Kalee Geron said, "Inventions team is where you come up with your own problem and you come up with a robot to solve your problem with a minimal solution."
Their invention is a firefighting robot that is placed on an all-terrain surface to show that it can move on surfaces that aren't flat. A water source is attached to and based on the teams programming a special claw will squeeze the water source sending out water to a fire.
With all the studying along with trial and error that goes into prepping for a robotics competition, students are also getting a second dose of other core subjects.
"We are basing our class program around STEM science, technology, engineering and math, we want to encompass several aspects of their core class," said Cowudrey.
He went on and said, "What's this good for, that's what the kids say a lot, why am I doing this. The majority of our schools put forth the idea that it's not just about the actual winning, we don't want that to be the overall goal. We want it to be about team work, working with."
Students from schools in Midland, Odessa, Alpine, Andrews and Presidio competed in the competition.
