JERSEY SHORE, Pa. -- Victoria Bellomo, a high school senior at Jersey Shore Area, has always been interested in engineering. It's part of the reason she joined the Vex Robotics team at the school where students work together to build robots for competitions.
"We spend almost every day after school from 4 (p.m.) up until 10 (p.m.) sometimes just working on the robot just trying to fix these little details," said Bellomo.
Over the weekend, her team took "Amanda," the robot they built, to a state competition in Pittsburgh. The robot is designed to pick up small cones, stack them, and move them.
"It was really intimidating at first. I actually had a ref that we knew from a previous competition comment on how nervous I was,” said Bellomo.
Bellomo quickly found out there was not much to be nervous about. Amanda came through, and Victoria’s team took home first place.
"It's just the most surreal experience being called up at the states competition for the two biggest trophies," said Bellomo.
"We were just ecstatic the whole day. It was, 'We won one! We won one!' We just kept winning," said Andrew Baker.
Engineering teacher Andrew Baker helps with Vex Robotics. This year, he'll be taking a team of seven to the international competition Vex Worlds. It's next month in Kentucky.
"There's going to be over 1,000 teams again from 40-some countries," said Baker.
"I'm absolutely ecstatic that I get to go to worlds," said Owen Knepp.
Jersey Shore took two teams to states. Now, both teams are joining forces and plan to take "Amanda" with them to Vex Worlds. They're still raising money for the trip to Kentucky.
"We're coming up a little bit short for what we need to get to Louisville," said Baker.
The team plans to hold a few fundraisers before the competition next month.
If you would like to support the team, click here.