Fresh from their success in Texas, students from Hastings Secondary College are still buzzing, talking about all the exciting things they were able to experience during their two week trip to the United States during the last school holidays.

The students were in the States for the First Robotics Competition after securing a spot in the prestigious event, winning the judges wildcard at the Asia Pacific regional competition, in Sydney in March.

“It was my first time getting on a plane to go overseas so for me everything was just so exciting,” student, Jorja Schofield said.

“I still can’t believe that we were able to do everything we did.”

The team – one of just eight Australian teams selected – left Port Macquarie on April 12 and competed with 408 teams from countries all over the world.

“It was such a fantastic opportunity to meet people from all over the world who are as passionate as we are about robotics,” said Towa Henry.

“The networking we were able to do was great because now we have connections all over the world.”

“For me, the best part about the competition was meeting people from all over the world and having a look at all the different materials teams used to make their robots,” Natalie Barratt said.

“It was a good to be able to see how all the different teams worked and figured out how to play the game.

"For all of us I think one of the big highlights was winning against the NASA team.”

The team came 33^rd out of 67 in their division, and placed in the top half of the world, on par with how they did last year.

“The big difference this year was, even though we went over with a lot more knowledge the competition was a lot tougher and we were able to learn a lot more,” Samet Portakaldali said.

“For the girls, we had the chance to go to a women in engineering session and it was so inspiring for us to sit there and listen to female engineers talk about what they had done,” Jorgabelle Munday said.

“For me it definitely showed and proved to me this what I want to be doing after school.”

As well as competing in the robotics competition, the group had the chance to visit NASA and explore where astronauts train before going into space.

“Going to NASA blew my mind, it was probably the best experience of my life being able to walk around a real rocket,” Abbey Buchanan said.

“Having the chance to see a real astronauts space suit was amazing.”

The team were also given a tour of where the engineers and NASA team worked from when they were running the Apollo missions.

“It was incredible, to be able to stand on the exact spot where people launched the Apollo missions from was amazing,” Samet Portakaldali said.

“Talking to the people who worked there, they were saying the computers that did the mathematics to calculate the Apollo missions had the memory and storage capacity of four digital photos.

“That basically means that my phone – with a 4GB hard drive – is around 4000 time more powerful than the first computers used to send people to space.”

Fresh from their inspiration trip, the Hastings Secondary College robotics team say they are ready to rebuild and go back to Texas better and stronger.

“We have a pretty young team so each year we are getting better and learn more about our capabilities and what we are able to achieve,”  Samet Portakaldali said.

“It was really inspirational to be surrounded by so many people who are doing what we are doing at school, and it is so exciting to be a part of that,” Jorja Schofield said.

“And meeting all the cool people we did was also pretty great, I even got a selfie with Will.i.am which was incredible.”