State Robotics Tournament Taking Over River’s Edge

ST. CLOUD -- It's the culmination of several months of hard work, the 8th annual Vex Robotics State Tournament is this weekend at the River's Edge Convention Center in downtown St. Cloud.

Organizer Aaron Barker says they have five divisions with college teams competing during the day on Friday and middle school and high school teams taking over on Friday night. There will also be elementary and middle school competitions on Saturday.

There's 177 teams and on average we figure about seven per team, so about 1,400 kids will be in the River's Edge Convention Center.  And then, of course, we get spectators, this is open to the public, free admission come in and check it out.  Last year we estimated we had over 7,000 people there at one time.

Barker says the teams qualified for the state tournament at 20 different local events across the state this season.

On the line this weekend is 13 invites to the world championships in Louisville, Kentucky.