Stateline students of all ages competed in the qualifying matches of the robotics competition today at Rock Valley College.

There were 32 teams in total at Saturday’s event and the theme this year was “medieval times”.

The goal of the competition was to get “boulders” over to the other end of the castle. Organizers say it’s a hands-on way to peak the student’s interest in science and technology.

“One of the problems we have nowadays is that we don’t have enough kids getting involved with science and technology and we need to get more interested in it,” explained Dan Green, FIRST lllinois Executive Director, “so we use FIRST Robotics to actually make science and technology fun.”

Younger kids also had their own robotics competition, but instead of metal, they used Legos.