About 850 students from all over Ontario, and their robots, are converging on the city for the 4th annual North Bay FIRST Robotics Competition.

There are practice sessions tonight (Thursday) with matches scheduled for tomorrow and Saturday.

Co-Chair Laura Piche says 25 teams are involved.

“They’re competing for a chance to compete in Toronto, at a regional level competition, and ultimately for a world competition in Missouri,” she says. “It’s an opportunity for participants to explore their STEM skill set, meaning Science, Technology, Engineering and Math.”

This year’s competition is called “Steamworks”.

She says once the students received their competition kit, they had six weeks to build their robot.

“Teams are not allowed to work on it further until they’re in competition mode, at that point they can tweek and modify to suit the objective of the matches, so it’s pretty impressive what these kids can pull off in a month and a half,” Piche adds.

The community is invited to check out the tournament online at northbayrobotics.ca or in person at the R.J. Surtees Athletic Centre at Nipissing University.

Admission is free.

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