ROCHESTER — Old Colony Regional Vocational Technical High School Robotics Club hosted a mock tournament for neighboring schools on Dec. 12.

The club set the arena up after school hours, before the participating teams arrived.

The tournament is structured like a sports event. Teams earn points by moving blocks into a “scoring zone” before time runs out. Blocks are worth one point each, but when placed in the towers they grow in value.

After a countdown, a student from one team controls each robot. They drive it around the small arena, knocking over the blocks and using whatever devices they have to lift them into the towers. When the time is up, they reset the court and reposition their robots.

Tenth graders from Carver High School said they had “a lot more than previous years and we think it will work well,” adding that “this year we have new equipment and we hope [the robots] are even.”

The Carver team worked on their robot about once a week for a month.

The seventh grade students of Silverlake Middle School said this was their first year and “it may start a little rough.”

One of their primary concerns was with the gears on the machine being able to pull up the cubes.

They thought they could have done better by planning a little before building and staying on topic during meetings. They also said “after seeing the other schools we would use a totally different building plan.”

The third team had independent seniors from Southeastern Regional Vocational Technical High School. They explained that their robot is very unique because it has a six motor drive, something none of the competing schools have.

They were looking to build a tray bot over the last month.

After looking at other teams’ robots, Old Colony students said, “they’re probably going to win. The other schools look like they put in lots of effort and their designs are well done.”

The hosting students, who spent two months working on their robot, wanted to add a ladder design to it, although it was something they’d tried last year that hadn’t worked. This year they would like to make the arms lift higher and fix smaller mechanical issues

East Bridgewater won the scrimmage.