Otumoetai College's robotics team are once again showing they are at the top of the field after defending their title at the NZ VEX Robotics Championships, which secures them a spot at the world championships in Los Angeles.

The three-day national championships at Auckland's Vodafone Events Centre saw teams from throughout New Zealand battle brain power and mechanics for the national title and overall robotic bragging rights.

Otumoetai College's Sarah Avery, Lucas de Rijk (mentor), Dean Strydom, Seumas Beedie (mentor), Logan Davy, Bradley Allen, Deon Wessels (teacher), Kate Low, and Toni de Rijk (manager).

The robotics competition is based on teams building and developing robots to compete in a set scenario, aiming to score the most points possible in qualification matches, elimination matches and skills challenges.

Teams form alliances composed of two teams each to compete in matches.

The young Otumoetai College team of Year 11 students Kate Low, Logan Davy and Dean Strydom –and Year 10 student Sarah Avery all made it through to the semi-final section of the championship with Kate and Logan coming out of top.

Seeded first after going unbeaten through eight qualifiers, the pair joined forces with Auckland's Lynfield College continuing their impressive winning streak all the way to the championship.

And the two college robots met in a tense semi-final, with Dean and Sarah paired with an Auckland Homeschool team, going the distance in the best of three rounds.

What makes the championship even more impressive is the quartet are in their first season of competition – defending last year's title won by students now at university.

The winning duo of Dean and Sarah also tasted success by posting a great score in the "Driver Skills" competition – a one minute time trial.

The pair's score earned them the runner's up position placing them 14th in the World rankings, with the Top 30 gaining automatic qualification to the World Championships.

Kate and Logan also entered the Design Award, requiring them to document the design and build process of their robot, and present their Design Notebook to a team of engineering industry based judges in a 10 minute interview.

Otumoetai College robotics teacher Deon Wessels is impressed by the untold hours outside of school that the students have put into designing and refining their robots.

The robotics field, which is kindly donated by BECA, has been permanently set up at the House of Science thanks to the generosity of Chris Duggan.

Deon says this enables the students to access the equipment during the summer holidays and after school, with former students and competitors Lucas de Rijk and Seumas Beedie sharing their experiences and mentoring the young team.

The next six weeks leading up to the World Championships will be spent further refining their robots, practising driving as much as possible and of course fundraising the $20,000 required for the four team members, manager and teacher to travel to compete in Los Angeles where they will try to defend their World Title.

The 2014 VEX Robotics World Championship will include top teams from over 400 VEX Robotics Competition tournaments happening throughout the world from June 2013 to March 2014.