No. I used to be a FIRST Robotics mentor. These are serious competitions with serious kids. Generally the international teams are there not only to compete but to represent their country.
Likely these kids have aspirations toward Engineering careers and have worked for years to earn their place in this competition.
In my teams case, we met year round and put in hundreds of hours in the weeks preceding competition. They are given the competition parameters and rules and have 6 weeks to design, build, test and often rebuild their robot. Lots of long nights.
In my son’s case, he parlayed that into acceptance in an aerospace engineering school with a good amount of scholarship money. He graduates next year.
I hope they are OK.
If these are good kids and smart, they will be seeking asylum.
“No. I used to be a FIRST Robotics mentor....”
My older son co-founded Team 975 in Midlothian, VA. I was a mentor for 5 years and my younger son was on the team as well. You are right about the hundreds of hours.
The other co-founder of the team got one of the FIRST scholarships to VCU engineering school and she graduated Summa Cum Laude. The “recruiter lady” at VCU engineering was also the coordinator of the FIRST regional competition, and knew us. She just sorta happened to find my son a 4-year ALCOA scholarship to engineering school.
It would be interesting to know the back story on these kids, especially the two who headed north.