World Robot Olympiad in Missouri

WRO stands for World Robot Olympiad, and it is a student robotics competition system that takes place throughout the world every summer. From what I've seen, I believe it is especially popular in Asia/India. TETRIX is a big supporter of WRO, and supplies competition kits for the "open category" of competition. However, the main category is referred to as "regular," and is entirely LEGO and Mindstorms. There are several interesting things about the regular category, the first of which is the age groups, which go all the way up to 18, So if you know some students who have aged out of FLL, but still love LEGOs and Mindstorms, tell them about this. The other very interesting thing is the competition format: teams are allowed to prepare programming prior to the competition event, but they cannot bring a pre-built robot. Building the robot is done at the event, and is part of the event. And lastly, I believe winners of this event in St. Charles will be eligible to advance to the US national championships in September, and from there potentially to the international finals, which are in Thailand in November.