 Well over 3400 teams from around the globe will be competing against each other for the title of first robotics world champions 17 of those teams met in nevis this weekend to learn more about just what the competition will hold melmyre reports Teams will need to build a robot that can gather and throw balls Climb a rope and place gears on a peg to gather points. This is our first year So we're kind of new at this, but we made a few friends. So we're excited to do it During this weekend's kickoff event teams were able to learn about the coding and 3d printing needed to build their robots Hannah newberry says she wanted to join because her friends were doing it when I heard more about it I was like, well, that's gonna help me in the future and I'll be able to learn a lot This is martin reigns's third year on the cast lake bina regulators team He says this is helping him towards his goal of being a bio engineer I love robots because it's introducing technology to younger kids And that's what we really need is to have more people inspired into this It's this approach that the nevis school staff have embraced starting in fourth grade students are introduced to lego robots As we see these kids marched through It's a natural fit for them to join the high school after school program The techno tigers have 33 students on the team this year They're always looking to connect with the community by bringing out their bots or teaching elementary students how to code And so it's a big thing is outreach and so these kids see what we do and they say I want to be part of that Perhaps the same following is in store for pequot lakes, which took the rookie all-star award at the 2016 lake superior regional At first it was kind of like, oh, these guys are nerds But now they realize how cool we are because when we were showing off a robot at petfest and stuff last year at the school The teams will now begin to build the robots, which will be used in competition in march and nevis I'm almyre lakeland news If any of the minnesota teams qualify for the world championship They'll be headed down to houston texas or st lewis missouri in april If you've enjoyed this segment of lakeland news, please consider making a tax deductible contribution to lakeland public television