Goulburn High School robotics students will head to nationals event at Sydney Olympic Park

This national competition follows the regional tournament, held at Daramalen College in Canberra recently.

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Goulburn High deputy principal Katherine Hyland, who oversees the robotics program, said this niche education exposes students to design and engineering processes.

"You think it, you build it, you test it, you improve it," she said.

"Robotics is all about collaboration and teamwork."

At the regional event students participated in six games before being placed into the finals, based off their average rank.

Ms Hyland said the BEX Robotics competition that Goulburn High School participates in is similar to a Lego build.

"They get the pieces of plastic, which can be reused and, on the robot that they build there's a brain, which they plug into motors and sensors," she said.

"There's two elements to it. There's a program part, which is where they program the robot to do a challenge. Then there's the driver part, which is where two students work together with another team that has two students on it to score as many points as they can. Each year that challenge changes."

Competing students must submit their engineering books at the competition, before being interviewed about their design.

"They get judged off all of those elements - what they've learnt and how they've build their robot. There's also a skills part, which is where they do it all by themselves - their programming and driving skills combined," Ms Hyland said.

"It was a really small group this year, the team that qualified for nationals won the skills challenge and the teamwork challenge. They also won the excellence award, which goes to the top team overall. They did an excellent job. I can't praise the students highly enough."

Although the other three teams didn't make it through, Goulburn High's second team did earn a wildcard entry to the nationals event in Sydney.

"The kids now have a short time to edit and fix their robots, know what worked in their tournaments, improve it, and document it all before nationals," Ms Hyland said.

Ms Hyland said the BEX Robotics competition was all about education and teamwork.

At the tournament, students compete in a teamwork challenge, over 60 seconds.

"The students have to drive their robot in, between 25 and 35 seconds, then they have to swap their controller over to their partner, who finishes the 60 seconds off," Ms Hyland said.

"You're working with another team who are doing the same thing so it's about that communication, collaboration and teamwork."

Ms Hyland said students enjoyed spending time with their friends and peers and accomplishing something.

"It's about sharing the ideas and working together," she said.

"You've got some people who are good at driving and some people who are good at building and some people who are good at documenting, but they all have a place."

The Lion's Club of Goulburn City has provided funds to help finance the students attending the nationals competition.

"The Lion's Club do a great job of supporting us," Ms Hyland said.

"As a teacher sometimes you don't know if the hours you put in are really recognised by the community but the Lion's Club always make me personally feel, that whatever I'm giving up to get them to where they need to be is worth it, because there's a group of people like the Lion's Club supporting me and the team as well."