WRO 2025 Competition

WRO 2025 Competition

A month after I graduated from elementary school, I attended the WRO national competition at the convention center in Ontario, California. Teams from across the United States traveled there to compete. We flew to Los Angeles, and my teammate carried our SPIKE Prime robot with him. The competition lasted about two days.

On the first day, the competition fields were open so teams could practice and prepare while the team interviews began. The interviews were recorded live and later posted on YouTube. This gave us time to test our robot, check our code, and make sure everything was ready before the main competition.

The actual competition started early the next morning. First, we completed team registration and robot inspection. The judges checked that our robot was within the size and weight limits. Our robot passed the inspection, so we were ready to compete.

While the remaining team interviews took place, we checked our code, recharged the batteries, and made final preparations. Then the first competition run began. There were three runs in total, with about one hour of practice between each round. We ate lunch after the second round and then returned for the final run.

After all three rounds were completed, we learned that our team had placed 25th out of around 50 teams. Our final score was based on our best performance from the three rounds. Even though we did not finish near the top, attending a national competition was a valuable experience because I was able to compete against teams from across the country and learn more about preparing, testing, and improving a robot under competition pressure.