Racing Robots in Overdrive

Put a thousand-plus high schoolers together with hundreds of robots ... and what do you get? A lot of noise and action in Boston's largest robotics competition.

Students from 66 New England high schools are converging upon Boston University for a contest called "FIRST Overdrive." They've spent the last six weeks designing and building their creations from scratch.

Today, and in the finals tomorrow, the young teams will put their remote-controlled robots to the test in a race that involves balloons and obstacles.

WBUR's Curt Nickisch stopped by for their trial runs this week.