Robotics teams from 3 Clovis Unified schools Houston bound after qualifying for first world championship

CLOVIS, Calif. (KFSN) -- With fierce competition looming the next generation of engineers from Clovis Unified are gearing up.

In just over a month the Stable Circuits of Clovis North are headed to Houston for the first "For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology" World Championship.

"We started this year with no team, no name, no idea of what we were getting ourselves into, and slowly but surely people started hearing about robotics," said Mary Allen, Clovis North High School.

Now boasting 39 students the team has come a long way.

"In five days we had a chassis built, it was zooming down the hallways of Clovis North and the kids said, 'Mrs. Allen, can we make it do more stuff,' and my answer was yes, if you can dream it you can do it," said Allen.

It is that mentality that lead to them ranking ninth out of 47 teams at the Regional Robotics Competition in Madera.

Their knowledge is not only taking them far in competition, they have used it to mentor elementary school teams.

Five out of Fugman placed first among 700 kids and 112 teams in the Central California Championships in January. They have gone from practicing once a week to every day to get ready for first.

"We like to work hard but we also have a lot of fun together," said Nicole Chien, Fugman Elementary. "Even when we don't agree on something, we create this really good idea by adding all of the certain parts together."

Their counter parts at Dry Creek Elementary call themselves the Nerd Herd. Like Team Pop from Fugman, they know teamwork will get them far in the competition.

"We divide and conquer-- some of us will be working on the different missions and some of us will be working on the posters and some of us will be designing," said Braden Batesole, Dry Creek Elementary. "It's fun, we have a lot of really good people."

Though making it to competition involves several components like core values and a project portion, the public will only see robot performance rounds.