St Columba Anglican School team Iona Fusion formed an alliance with the Hastings Heroes from Hastings Secondary College at the FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) Southern Cross Regional Championships held in South Windsor form March 15 to 17.

Hastings Secondary College robotics mentor Grant Weatherby said it was the second year running the schools have ended up in a great alliance together.

"It's awesome to have the whole stadium that we participate in chanting 'Port Macquarie'," he said.

"One of the best things about the whole competition is that moment when we're all working together."

The FRC Southern Cross Regional Championships is a large-scale robotics competition that sees teams from Asia and Australia compete to qualify for the World Championships held in Houston.

This year, 47 teams competed in groups of three at the qualification matches to determine if they would make it to the playoffs.

St Columba head of technology and head of Iona Fusion Justin Munro said it was amazing the way the strategy of the competition works.

"Because you've got so many teams with so many different ability levels and funding in what you can put into your robots," he said.

"Some of them will have great ability, some will not have great ability, some will be able to do aspects of the game, some of them will be able to do all aspects of the game."

Teams work their way down or up the ladder, collaborating and communicating with a variety of other teams.

With not all teams speaking English, this was no easy feat.

"It was probably a really good experience for country kids to meet all of these other teams and people from other countries," Mr Weatherby said.

"It was a very busy and very gruelling weekend but a really rewarding one at the end of it."

Iona Fusion finished the qualification rounds in fourth place which made them alliance captains for the playoff and able to pick two other robots to be on their alliance.

Their first pick was fellow Port Macquarie school, Hastings Secondary College who they had paired up with in 2023 as well.

"We're creating a bit of a Port Macquarie alliance there," Mr Munro said.

"Both teams have achieved exceptionally well and it's great for the kids because some of the kids know each other and they can work together.

"It's just great to have that community spirit."

This year, the Port Macquarie alliance also included a Taipei team from Shulin High School.

The trio battled it out against seven other alliances in the playoffs with the teams bowing out in round three.

But Mr Munro said it was a massively successful year considering the local teams were competing against universities not just high school students.

Their alliance saw two award winners with the Taipei team chosen as the 2024 Rookie All Star Award and given the wild card to go through to America later this year.

The Hastings Heroes also finished with the Innovation in Control Award which is presented to teams who have found a way to manipulate the game element in a creative and innovative way.

"It was really nice for us to walk away with the recognition of that one," Mr Weatherby said.

"Our robot just performed beyond what we had expected."

Robotics and STEM are immensely popular at both schools with St Columba having it's largest team ever to attend the competition with 30 of the 50 students who worked on the robot travelling to South Windsor.

"We have about 20 female students on the team now so we've had a massive growth with females in STEM and females in robotics which is great to be a part of," Mr Munro said.

Mr Munro credited local businesses who sponsored the school team for covering the travel and entree costs of the competition.

Both schools are focusing on encouraging their younger cohorts with a number of Hastings Year 7 and St Columba Year 9 students taking part in the FRC competition this year.

St Columba students in Years 7 to 9 will be competing in a smaller scale competition where they can design and build robots.

A mentorship program within the Hastings Heroes allows the Year 7 student's junior team to work on their own robot with advice from the older students.

"We're trying to get the team to be really self-sustaining," Mr Weatherby said.

"And really encouraging the older students in our team to mentor and work closely with the junior ones so there's a big sharing of knowledge between the kids."

The Southern Cross Competition isn't the only robotics event the two schools are competing in with the teams gearing up for 'The Duel Down Under', another FRC held in Sydney later this year.