At the Javits Center, it was the rise of the robots thanks to some whiz kids from dozens of local high schools taking part in a major robotics competition. NY1's Roger Clark has the story.

You can't help but be impressed by the bright green robot created by students at Queens Vocational and Technical High School. They are hoping it will get them to the robotics world championships for a third time in four years.

"Oh man, it's exciting," said Davier Simmons, a student from the school. "We're ready, and we're ready to compete and see what other robots can do out here, what we can do out there."

They were one of 66 high school teams from the area preparing for the NYC First Robotics Competition on March 11-13.

NYC First is the local affiliate of FIRST, a global non-profit organization created to get young people excited about science and technology and prepare them for the modern tech-based workplace.

"This was First's first program, the First Robotics competition here with the 120 pound robots," Sam Alexander of NYC First said. "But now First has four different programs that reach students from kindergarten all the way through 12th grade."

And for the high school kids, their challenge has a medieval theme. It's called stronghold. Basically their robots must storm the castle to win.

The kids have been working on the machines with their faculty advisor coaches for six weeks. The ultimate goal is to be one of six teams that will head to the world finals in St. Louis in April.

But even the competitors say winning isn't everything.

"I feel like the competition is more about what we get out of the experience, instead of winning," Yubin Kim of Stuyvesant High School said.

"It pushes me in the right direction, because if I wanted to do engineering this would be something that would have helped me to choose it," said Isaiah Ali of the Thomas Jefferson High School Campus.

In fact, being part of their robotics team has already inspired some of these students to seek careers in technology. In the case of Bradley Moog, he will use his skills in the Navy as a nuclear engineer on submarines.

"It's going to be sad leaving this team, but I'm happy because the kids that I left here are going to be well set off," said Moog, a student at Queens Vocational and Technical High School.

If you want to check out the competition on March 11-13, it's open to the public and it's free.

For more information, just head to NYCFirst.org