Intense Competition Highlights FIRST Robotics Tournament

ST. CLOUD (WJON News) -- Hundreds of high school students from three states were in St. Cloud this weekend, fighting to advance. The FIRST Robotics' Granite City Regional took place at the River's Edge Convention Center from Thursday through Saturday. The event is the 8th most competitive tournament in the world for FIRST Robotics.

Over 70 matches were played in the three-day event.

Planning Committee member Alex Jurek says with such great competition, some teams had to go home disappointed:

"We have some very high-caliber teams here. Some teams should make it to the world championships, they're not gonna go, they're not going to be able to punch their ticket, and that's kind of the cool thing about this is, again, a lot of incredible teams from across not only just Minnesota but Central Minnesota, and Central Minnesota is a hotbed of robotics now."

Jurek says there are a lot of great teams nearby, with St. Michael recently taking 5th in the world, Becker capturing 4th in the world two years ago, and New London-Spicer placing 4th in the world just last year.

Paul Habstritt, WJON

The robots take months to build and can weigh over 115 pounds.

The event offers a unique three-versus-three format. Jurek says helping teams you have beaten is key to advancing:

"If you watch, as these teams are competing with each other, FIRST has coined the term coopertitiion, so you come off the field you might have just played against that team, broken down, you might have beat them up a little bit, but then you back over to the pit to make sure they're ready to go because you might be competing with them the very next match so it's not like you want to just smash and beat up all these robots. You want to compete at a high level, but you want everybody else competing at that same high level."

Jurek says there is a lot of strategy in how teams build their robots, and sometimes you have to pick your poison in order to be successful and move on. 51 teams took part in the three-day event, with students from 9th through 12th grade participating.