By Laura Frykberg
A pair of Wellington students are off to battle the best brains at the world championship Vex Robotics competition in Florida next month.
If you've never heard of Vex Robotics, you're not alone. Neither had Nightline until we met Dominik Schmid and Zach Sim.
Against 60 teams, two young men have created a winning robot worthy of a world championship.
"We didn't think we had much of a chance because we were going against previous world champions and previous winners," says Sim.
But last weekend they did - their robot was a finalist in the National Vex Robotic competition, where teams compete in 'round up', a game where each team's robot stacks rings on goal posts.
Extra points are awarded if the robot can hang on a ladder.
"We mainly focus on scoring rings which is also really effective and it's a different strategy than most teams have got," says Schmid.
Thirty hours of intense concentration helped the pair get its speed up to half a metre per second.
"Because of the size of its base we can generally be faster than the bigger robots that are much heavier," says Sim.
It's an advantage the duo reckon will help them drop a bombshell at the world champs in April.
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