Students from Port Macquarie are on their way to Coffs Harbour for the annual First Lego League competition on November 20.
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The First Lego League is a competition catering for upper-primary and lower-secondary school students aged nine to 14.
Every year, teams of up to 10 students build, program and compete with a robot, while also learning about a modern problem in science and engineering and developing solutions for it.
Tournaments are run with the feel of a sporting event, and teams compete like crazy for the top prize and a chance to progress to Sydney in December, which leads to the international stage.
Tacking Point Public teacher, Cass Tonkin, said the kids love it and can not wait to compete.
“We've been doing it for two and a half terms now and they are in every lunchtime working on something to do with the project,” she said.
“We initially opened it to everyone and more than 100 kids tried to sign up, and we could only take 10.”
Students must work together to present in three different categories. The first is the robot game, the next is core values and the third is the STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) projects.
“We have split our team into two. They are working primarily on the robot games,” Ms Tonkin said.
“All the tasks on the board are worth a certain amount of points, so the more they complete the more points they get for the challenge.
“The other main project is about deep space. They have to come up with a way to overcome a physical or social issue that they would have with long term space travel.
“Our students decided to build solar panels to charge a gaming station to fix the problem of boredom.”
People may think it is about grabbing blocks and building castles, but really it is much more in-depth.
“It really focuses on that science, technology, engineering and mathematics," she said.
"Once they finish these regional finals they could be selected to go to Sydney and from there they could go international."