SOUTHFIELD – Cranbrook Kingswood Girl?s Middle School will host the World Robot Olympiad Michigan Tournament on September 6 to select regular and open category student teams in Michigan.

Opening ceremonies begin at 8:30 a.m. and the event is expected to end at 3 p.m. The public is welcome and admission is free.

WRO is a global robotics competition involving nearly 20,000 middle school and high school teams from throughout the world. Each participating country has its own competition and the best teams are invited to attend and compete at the World Robot Olympiad for gold, silver and bronze medals.

Lawrence Technological University/Robofest World Headquarters in Michigan is the competition?s national organizer for the United States.

The regular category competition entitled ?Rocket? this year challenges each student-built robot to gather all ?rocket? elements, assemble them in the correct order, and lift them with the launch facility. The ?civilians? need to be moved to the ?Safe Area? and the robot needs to end up in the ?Safe Area.?

This year?s theme for the open category is similar to science fairs. Called ?Robots and Space,? the task is for students to design and create robots that will assist humankind in solving tasks in space.

Michigan teams are from:

Cranbrook Schools, Bloomfield Hills

Homeschool Girls, St. Clair Shores

3Volution, Novi

Smart Robo, Novi

Robotics Group, Troy

Hillside Middle School, Northville

Novi Meadows, Novi

Bethany Christian School, Troy

RoboCruisers, Canton

The USA national finals will be at Lawrence Technological University on Saturday, Sept. 27, 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. In addition to Michigan, teams are coming from New York, Oregon, California, and Illinois.

This year?s WRO world final competition is scheduled to be held in the Olympic city at Sochi in Russia Nov. 21-23. Participants from over 49 countries ? including the United States for the first time ? will be offered accommodations in the Olympic Village hotels and apartments.

For more details about Lawrence Tech?s leadership of WRO-USA, Click on WRobot.US