High school robotics teams have taken over the Valley View Casino Center for three days of spirited competition.
This weekend 58 teams from Southern California will compete in the ninth annual San Diego Regional FIRST Robotics Competition. The finalists will go to the championships in St. Louis.
The teams, which are tasked with creating robots, come from varied backgrounds. Some have more than 40 members and some, like the La Puente High School team, have as few as five team members. La Puente student Diego Navaro said his team may be small in number, but they’re big in heart.
“It doesn’t matter about the number,” Navaro said. "It just matters whose working and how much you dedicate toward the robot."
Navaro said his team spent between $500 to $1,000 to build its robot. But the 17-year-old doesn’t see his team's small budget as a limitation.
Xavier Valladarez, 15, and his classmates from Southwest High School are participating in the competition for the first time.
Valladarez said the experienced teams and the big teams support the smaller and newer teams.
“Everything that they do we can pick up as strategies and tips,” Valladarez said. "They’re just our mentors."
The contest is organized by For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology, or FIRST. David Berggren, the Southern California director for FIRST, said the event is a contest but there is a tradition of cooperation to go along with the competition.
Berggren credits the friendly spirit with turning the event into almost a carnival.
“It's sort of part sporting event, part Comic-Con, part robotics competition,” he said.
For more information about the competition, go to sandiegoregional.com/
