The Cape Girardeau Central Junior High School robotics team, TigerTech, qualified for the Live Remote VEX Robotics World Championship after winning the Design Award this past weekend at the Missouri Middle School VEX State Championship.

"We're still pinching ourselves," science teacher and team coach Julianna West said about the team's award, qualification and experience at the state competition. "I'm so proud of them, and they worked so hard for it, but we're not done."

Because of COVID-19 restrictions, this year's world competition in late May will be virtual. TigerTech will be competing with other qualified teams in grades six through 12.

The competition was completely canceled last year, but in 2019, 1,650 teams and more than 15,000 students from all over the world competed in Louisville, Kentucky, according to the Courier Journal newspaper.

West said TigerTech's meeting with the judges and quality of their notebook, which contains all the team's notes about their robot, played a big part in advancing them in the competition. Additionally, she said she thinks their original design showed they were doing something different from everyone else.

While the robot had some structural issues at state, she said the team still has time to perfect the build and notebook, and to overall prepare for the world competition.