In three weeks, robots of all shapes and sizes will crunch metal together as they battle it out one-on-one in Meadville to see who is champion.
The robots are part of the 12th annual RoboBOTS competition where high school and middle school students design and build 15-pound robots to do battle in a double-elimination tournament.
This year, 42 teams from 22 schools are set to participate April 7 at Meadville Area Senior High School with the action kicking off at 9 a.m. in the school's gymnasium.
The northwestern Pennsylvania chapter of the National Tooling and Machining Association, a trade group for the industry, sponsors the annual competition. It was started during the 2006-07 school year as a way to get students interested in pursuing technical careers.
NTMA chapter surveys of the participants have found 95 percent of students who participated said RoboBOTS raised their awareness of manufacturing and technical careers — and 85 percent of the students said they planned to investigate the possibility of a career in a technical field.